Picture of Sojourner Truth
An Essay: on Pensacola's History and Outmoded Flags
An Op Ed by William Sloan and Christopher "Scott" Satterwhite
Government display of Confederate flags is an
affront to descendants of the people who were enslaved under the Confederacy and
odious to all who care. The issue, however, as you will see below, goes
beyond the mere question of which oppressive flag not to fly. The "Battle Flag," at least, flew mostly
over ordinary men (few women) who somehow believed that their society depended
on going to war. But that flag came to be used to glamorize the Southern cause,
and we all know, to accompany act after act of bigotry and violence. The
national flag, the "Stars and Bars," is worse yet. It was hoisted
over the halls of power by rich, educated and elite men (few women). Confederate Vice President Alexander
Stephens declared that the new government "rested upon the great truth that
subordination to the superior white race—is the negro's natural and normal
condition." Hence, Confederate
flags are the only flag among Pensacola's "Five Flags" based solely
on racism.
The oft-repeated statement that the Civil War
was fought over "States' Rights" is baloney. Indeed, the southern
states were induced to ratify the Constitution itself, in 1787, by making three-fifths
of persons "not free" count in a state's population. Slaves thus involuntarily
added thirty-eight percent to Southern power to elect a House and President favoring
their own slavery. The South gained in, or won outright, many hard-fought
political and judicial battles over extension of slavery and forcible return of
escaped slaves. The 1854 Kansas-Missouri Act extended slavery to the
then-northwest states. The Republican Party was organized in response. In
secession, Southern Governors cited slavery and fear of "Black
Republicans."
I do not deny the valor, fortitude or military
skill of the men who fought under the Battle Flag. Admiration and Southern
heritage, however, do not validate the rightness of their cause. Indeed, only three months before Lee
surrendered an exhausted army, Confederate political leaders, in their vanity, rejected Lincoln's face-to-face invitation to restore the
Union with compensation for emancipated slaves.
What flags, then, if any? There is no monument to celebrate the courage and
fortitude of the Slaves who labored in Pensacola, as elsewhere, in humiliating
captivity. People who strived, without a flag of any kind, for their own human dignity
and to keep families intact in ways we rarely hear of and might not understand
if we did.
There is more. People were enslaved under all of Pensacola's
five flags. In 1559, de Luna brought Slaves from Africa and the
recently-subjugated Aztec people. In the interest of human rights, all these
people need to be remembered – again, by their own cultural standards.
There is more still. Native Americans had lived in the
Pensacola area for centuries before the Spaniards arrived. Are we to think that
the history of Pensacola and Escambia County began just 450 years ago? Are we
to think that any flag we've seen represents them?
On December 21 we heard 150 voices, black,
white and more, confronting the News Journal from Palafox Street for its misguided
editorial in favor of a flying a Confederate flag. But, we have more to change
than just an editorial. Measures of the kind I advocate demand an inclusive
vision of the history of Pensacola and Escambia County and a painful effort to discard
some of our mythology. The benefits will far outweigh the work of bringing
about a fresh vision. Pensacola, and News Journal, get on board and get to work!
