Saturday May 13th’s Daily Press (Judge the Senator by fitness to serve, not teenage behavior) gave lawyer Mark Ailsworth an op ed to exonerate Sen. Allen. The author provides the political, if not legal, defense of “young, dumb, male.”
Ailsworth personalizes his history with the Confederate battle flag and writes, “From the moment it was expropriated by the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction, the flag became a symbol of the racism that has plaqued this country since the arrival of the first black slaves in 1619.”
His history is a bit off. The occupying Federal Army didn’t take kindly to Confederate battle flags during Reconstruction. So, when the KKK was the most physically threatening, the KKK used the Christian cross. No one kept the association.
In the 1920s, when the KKK was the most politically threatening (see photo above of parade in the Washington DC), the KKK used the American flag – Old Glory. No one kept the association.
In the 1950/60s, when the KKK was heavily infiltrated by the FBI and a fringe element caught in every act of violence, the KKK used the Confederate battle flag. Liberals, historically challenged Yankees, and politically correct Southerners hold the association as eternal.
Finally, lawyer Ailsworth wrote that white Southerners “would do the nation and ourselves a favor if we folded the Confederate flag and stored it in the attic with our yearbooks and relics of the past.” It depends on how you treat memories of valor. Some families take the shadow boxes of medals of family member’s military service and put them in the attic. Most families put those shadow boxes in the front room.
Clearly, Mr. Ailsworth has lost touch with being a Southerner. Attics are where you keep crazy relatives.