The confederate flag: heritage or hate? The recent murder of nine black people by a white supremacist has reignited a debate about confederate symbols.

• Author: Brown, Bryan
• Position: TIMES PAST - Cover story

Everyone there knew they were witnessing history. On July 10, a South Carolina Highway Patrol honor guard marched up to a flagpole on the grounds of the State House in Columbia, the state capital. In front of a crowd of 10,000 people, the officers ceremoniously lowered the Confederate flag, folded it, and took it away.

It was a moment packed with emotion, especially since it had come to pass because of the shocking murder in June of nine black churchgoers in Charleston by a young white supremacist. As the flag came down, some in the crowd chanted "U.S.A.!"

"I didn't think I'd live to see this," says James Johnson, who was there. For him, the flag represented slavery--the main cause of the Civil War (1861-65)--and the oppression of blacks like himself in the South for a century after the war.

Others in the crowd weren't so happy. Robert Hines, who is white, stood quietly holding small rebel flags. "We had 22,000 South Carolinians die under the flag," he said. For him and many other Southerners, the flag is a symbol of pride and heritage.

How did the flag--and other symbols of the Confederacy--come to represent such different things to Americans?

Reconstruction & Jim Crow

The flag we know today as the Confederate flag wasn't actually the official flag of the Confederacy but a battle flag carried by rebel soldiers during the Civil War (see box, p. 21). After the war, those tattered battle flags receded somewhat into the background, as white and black Southerners tried to rebuild their lives. During the period of Reconstruction (1865-77), the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery, the 14th granted blacks citizenship, and the 15th gave black men the right to vote.

But shortly after Reconstruction, much of the South began instituting "Jim Crow" laws that kept discrimination against black people in place for nearly a century. Violence against blacks, including lynchings, also became common. Starting in the early 1900s, the N.A.A.C.P. and other groups began working to gain civil rights for blacks, and during the 1950s and '60s, they began winning some major battles.

The Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling outlawed segregation in public schools. And federal courts forced integration on buses, trains, and other public spaces. Many white Southerners bridled at Northern "interference," and the battle flag became a symbol of resistance. In 1961, the South Carolina Legislature ordered the rebel flag to be flown from the State House dome. Officially, it was to commemorate the start of the Civil War 100 years earlier. But many people understood it as opposition to civil rights gains.

"The more the white South lost on this issue," says Charles Zelden, a historian at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, "the more important that flag came to be. "

That's something Johnson, who witnessed the flag removal in July, experienced firsthand. When he was a boy, the Ku Klux Klan, a racist group that terrorized blacks, would march through his hometown of North Charleston carrying the Confederate flag. "That's how they showed they disliked you," he says. "There's nothing good about that flag as far as black folks are concerned."

Since the civil rights era, the battle flag has become more ingrained in Southern life. It's flown proudly from many houses, in public squares, and by fans at NASCAR races. Some elements of its design are included in seven state flags.

In South Carolina, numerous attempts had been made over the years to remove the flag from the State House, and demonstrators by the thousands had marched for or against it. In 2000, state lawmakers compromised by moving it from the top of the State House dome to a flagpole in front of the building. Opponents of the flag remained frustrated.

Then came Dylann Roof. On June 17, the 21-year-old white man opened fire at a prayer service at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. He killed nine people, all of them black. After Roof was arrested, authorities found his website. Along with racist rants, it showed Roof posing with Confederate symbols, including the battle flag.

The shootings spurred renewed debate about the Civil War and its meaning today: Are flags and memorials to Confederate figures racist? Or do they simply honor Americans who fought on what was ultimately the losing side of the Civil War?

After the shootings, calls arose once again in South Carolina to remove the State House flag. This time, Governor Nikki Haley joined in. "One hundred and fifty years after the end of the Civil War," she said, "the time has come."

While the State Senate debated the matter, Senator Clementa Pinckney's desk was draped in black as a sign of mourning. Pinckney, who was also pastor of the church in Charleston, was among the nine killed by Roof. Despite some resistance, a majority of legislators agreed to remove the flag. With almost unbelievable swiftness, the flag was gone. Yet the debate over Confederate symbols and where they fit in America in 2015 remains unresolved.

'It's Not About Slavery'

Since the Charleston shootings, many Southerners have rallied to defend the flag. "It's not about slavery," wrote Ron Springer, a descendant of Civil War veterans, in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "It's about my ancestors fighting for their freedom."

Zelden, the Nova Southeastern University professor, says that many Southerners see the flag as a symbol that the South, in its history and culture, is different from the North.

"Symbols have the power to represent so much in a quick visual flash," he says. "The flag is a shorthand for This is who I am, this is what I believe.'"

In the wake of the Charleston shootings, some Southern states are rethinking their relationship to the battle flag. Alabama quietly took down flags at its state...