Less-Confederate Flag Gets Georgia Senators’ Salute

With the whack of a gavel, the Georgia Senate on Tuesday approved a new state flag that minimizes the Confederate battle emblem and brings 45 years of a racially charged controversy to an end.

The vote was supposed to be tight. But after Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes won over reluctant conservative lawmakers with a round of promises that included hanging a portrait of Robert E. Lee in the Capitol, the Senate voted, 34 to 22, for the new design.

“This is going to uplift the entire state--black and white,” said David Scott, one of the African American senators pushing the new flag. “Black Georgians can now feel better about their state. And whites, well, they don’t have to carry an enormous burden anymore.”

With the governor’s signature a given (the state House already has approved the measure), Tuesday’s vote means that Georgia soon will pull down yet another vestige of the Old South.

Radically different from the current version, which is dominated by the Rebel cross, the new flag will feature Georgia’s gold state seal on a field of royal blue. It has a banner running along the bottom that reads “Georgia’s History” and sports images of five smaller flags--including the current one.

For years, the flag issue has raged as one of the most incendiary topics in the South--pitting white against black, old against new, redneck versus yuppie, Republican versus Democrat. Heritage groups say the battle emblem represents states’ rights and Southern pride. Civil rights groups and others say it’s a symbol of slavery.

In this charged atmosphere, Barnes hammered out a secret compromise between rural Democrats and black politicians to redesign the state flag without eliminating the Rebel cross. Democrats, who control both chambers of the state Legislature, rushed the measure to the House floor last week--where it passed by a thin margin.

On Tuesday afternoon, the issue landed in the Senate. The gold-domed Capitol was surrounded by police and dotted with protesters, the Senate gallery was packed with spectators, and lawmakers loosed copious amounts of rhetoric--with one politician even quoting “Gone With the Wind.”

“Tomorrow is another day, yes,” said Democrat Steve Thompson of suburban Atlanta. “The question is: How will we be remembered?”

GOP senators fired back, stroking the chords of history--and with it, Southern identity.

“I cannot let those boys who left their homes and fought for Georgia be forgotten,” said Joey Brush, from rural Wilkes County. “I love this flag--and I don’t feel guilty.”

Barnes also weighed in. The popular governor has expended enormous political capital trying to change the flag. He spent the weekend lining up votes the old-fashioned way--with promises ranging from the Lee portrait to new social service offices in rural areas.

“To those who say this would dishonor our heritage, I say that nothing could be further from the truth,” Barnes told senators on Tuesday.

Democrats outnumber Republicans, 32 to 24, and all but four voted for the new design. Six Republicans--most of them from the Atlanta area--broke party ranks and supported the flag. The senate’s 11 African American members all supported the redesign, as had all the black representatives in the House.

When the old Georgia flag is pulled down and the new one raised, Mississippi will be the only state that prominently features the Confederate battle emblem. But that may not last either. In April, Mississippi is holding a referendum to replace its flag with one that does not have a Rebel cross.

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Times researcher Edith Stanley contributed to this story.