A Flag Vote Is Run Up a Pole in Georgia

Georgia became the site of the latest battle over the Confederate-flag emblem Wednesday as Gov. Sonny Perdue proposed a statewide vote on whether to return the symbol to its former prominence on the state flag.

The issue has percolated for months as Perdue, a Republican elected in November, considered how to make good on a campaign promise to let voters have a say in the design of the state flag, which was hastily reconfigured by his Democratic predecessor in 2001 to sharply reduce the size of the rebel emblem.

The new design, approved without public debate, angered many white voters -- especially in rural areas -- who turned out in large numbers on election day and helped Perdue topple Gov. Roy Barnes. Perdue, a onetime Democrat, became the state’s first GOP governor since Reconstruction.

“It’s been apparent from the campaign that Georgia is a somewhat divided house on the issue of what symbol represents it,” Perdue said during a news conference. He said he hoped a vote would “settle this once and for all.”

In legislation submitted Wednesday, Perdue proposed a nonbinding referendum, coinciding with the March 2004 presidential primary vote, that would ask the state’s 3.9 million registered voters whether to keep the current flag, or to restore one of two previous versions. One of those is the recently discarded flag, on which the rebel emblem, with its blue cross of St. Andrew, is dominant. The other is a striped banner, adapted from the lesser-known First National Flag of the Confederacy, that flew over Georgia before 1956.

The referendum would really be a straw poll; a final decision would rest with state lawmakers. The proposal faces significant hurdles in the state Legislature, where Democrats control the House and Republicans hold the Senate.

Perdue said holding the vote with the presidential primary would give lawmakers time while they are still in session to take action on a new flag if the current one loses. The primary balloting is the next time that voters statewide will be going to the polls. But Republicans, with memories still fresh of the controversy that enveloped Mississippi GOP Sen. Trent Lott in December when he appeared to endorse racial segregation, also want to avoid possible damage to President Bush’s reelection bid by not waiting until the November 2004 ballot.

“They’re trying to minimize any negative fallout for President Bush,” said Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University.

Perdue said he hoped the flag vote would help bridge the yawning differences in opinion over the rebel emblem, which is embraced by supporters as an embodiment of Southern pride and reviled by detractors as a symbol of racism. The controversy is a source of unease for business leaders and tourism boosters who are concerned about its effects on Georgia’s image.

Perdue urged residents to hear each other out, saying he hoped the discussion would help lead to a “racial reconciliation” over the symbol. “Some view it as heritage. Some view it as hate. What we want to do is bring Georgians together,” he said.

But the referendum idea stirred fresh debate over the proper place for the emblem -- fights that also have raged in South Carolina and Mississippi in recent years. Mississippi voters opted in 2001 to retain the rebel emblem as part of the state flag. In South Carolina, the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People has waged a boycott since 2000 to protest the Confederate banner on statehouse grounds.

Supporters of the former Georgia flag -- “flaggers,” as they have come to be known -- applauded Perdue’s proposal. Many of them mobilized against Barnes during the campaign, revealing the rebel-flag controversy as a potent issue.

“We had asked for a referendum. Our theme has been, ‘Let us vote.’ We’re getting our opportunity to vote,” said A. Jack Bridwell, Georgia division commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

“If it loses, I’ll shut up,” said Charles Lunsford, president of the Heritage Preservation Assn.

Lunsford, an investigator in the state’s consumer affairs office, said the rebel emblem, which was carried by soldiers but never officially adopted by the Confederacy, represented a proud moment in Southern history. “It’s an emblem of Southern pride. It has nothing to do with people hating each other,” he said.

Black leaders said they hoped to persuade state lawmakers to block the referendum, which some characterized as a poorly veiled ploy to restore the Confederate symbol. “It’s just a trick,” said Walter Butler, president of the NAACP in Georgia.

“We’ve seen referendums at work in other areas. It’s a divisive issue that pits neighbor against neighbor. We don’t want that in Georgia,” said the Rev. Charles L. White Jr., director of the NAACP in the Southeast.

The proposed two-question referendum would rely on high-tech video voting machines, on which the competing flag designs would be displayed. In the first question, voters would be asked whether to change the current flag. A second question would ask them to choose between the two former state flags in case the current design is dumped.

Black said the referendum carried political risks for lawmakers from both parties and might never make it onto the ballot.

“It could be a situation here where there is no agreement and no bill,” Black said. “This bites everybody.”