A disclaimer: I am, in the contexts of this discussion, a yankee. I was born in Michigan and can trace family roots to John Brown. And I'm proud of both of these facts.
Why is the Confederate Flag still allowed to fly? It's the flag that was flown by a treasonous segment of our population, who thought that they could break off from this country because they didn't like the results of one political election. Never mind the Fucking Fact that they practically owned the White house before that point, Lincoln threatened to destroy all that the South held dear, just by sitting there and being President. They forced the hand of the federal government to act against them and their barbaric institution. I know why the flag is still flown, we didn't break the soul of hatred in the South for long enough. We let their leaders off too easily, instead of being given a traitor's trial and burial (like all of the criminals in WW2). During Reconstruction, actual progress was being made towards equality. Having an equal chance, Black Americans were able to express their will and start to build for themselves a place in this country. Terrorist groups, like the KKK, threatened this, which is why federal troops were needed, because some stupid southern bastards couldn't pull their heads out of their asses and the hate they had developed for a generation. Jefferson said he trembled when he reflects that God is just in regards to slavery, and this punishment should have been visited full circle upon the controlling classes in the south, those that sought to betray their country.
Instead the beginnings of the shift of the Parties placed the Republicans in league with big business, which had no use for the radical wing that sought equality, so it allowed troops to be removed from the South before a generation could grow up knowing equality and simply allowing the anger and hatred that had been bottled up by un-hung traitors to be vented into the system, bringing us the era of Jim Crow.
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