30 January 2023 THAT FLAG by Tameka Fryer Brown and Nikkolas Smith, ill., HarperCollins, January 2023, 40p., ISBN: 978-0-06-309344-7

“A majority of Southerners now view the Confederate flag as a symbol of racism, according to a new Quinnipiac poll, a major reversal over a flag that up until very recently most Americans just associated with ‘Southern pride’…55% of Southerners now mainly associate the Confederate flag with racism, the poll found, compared to 36% who said the flag was more of a symbol of Southern pride…Republicans were the only demographic polled that overwhelmingly said the Confederate flag was more a symbol of Southern pride, 74%, than racism, 16%.”

– Forbes, “Majority Of Southerners Now View The Confederate Flag As A Racist Symbol, Poll Finds” (7/15/2020)

“When it will be right? I don't know

What it will be like? I don't know

We live in hope of deliverance

From the darkness that surrounds us”

– Paul McCartney (1993)

“The Confederate flag largely disappeared after the Civil War. The growing battle over the Reconstruction South’s racial order of Jim Crow segregation brought back the Confederate flag’s use as a political symbol. Supporters of the States Rights Party in 1948 used the flag as a symbol of support for segregation and the denial of fundamental human and civil rights for African Americans. The use of the Confederate flag as a symbol of segregation became more widespread and more violent after the United States Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954. Southern states were resisting federally mandated integration and incorporated the flag into their official symbolism.  

On June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof, a white supremacist, murdered nine African American worshipers during a Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC. A widely circulated photo of Roof on the internet showed him holding a gun and the Confederate flag. After capture, Roof said the purpose of the murders was to start a race war. The shooting increased the awareness of racial violence and terrorism in the United States and led to the removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina state capitol grounds on July 10, 2015.”

– Carol Pomeroy, Salisbury [NC] Post, (1/29/2023)

Bianca is white. Keira, the narrator of THAT FLAG, is Black. The two are best friends at school. But Keira is not permitted to visit Bianca’s house, or invite Bianca over, because Bianca's parents keep a Confederate flag flying in their front yard. 

Two things happen to bring a new perspective to the situation. First, the girls’ class embarks on a field trip to a fictional Southern Legacy Museum, for which Keira’s father is one of the chaperones.There, the students encounter exhibits relating to the Confederate flag that include an auction block; a cotton gin; KKK memorabilia and photos; and a “Colored” water fountain and sign. 

“Back on the bus, Dad and I sit up front, behind the driver. I stare out the window, remembering those pictures and that flag. My best friend’s flag.

Later that night, my family and I talk for a long time. They tell me things they’ve never told me about before. 

About the scary things my grandpa saw when he was just a kid.

About Grandma being spat on for trying to go to school.

About Mom and Dad getting called bad names and chased by people in a truck.

About the Freedom Riders.

About Selma.

About the Charleston 9.

We talk about the things Black people have to do every day to stay safe. After our talk, I feel scared, confused, and mad. 

But mostly I’m sad.”

The next day, Bianca does not bring up any of the history from the museum that is now weighing  so heavily on Keira. This perceived lack of empathy leads Keira to keep to herself at school and to stop the reading and playing together that helped define the two girls’ friendship.

The second thing that happens is a news broadcast: “Two Black people were shot in their own front yard by three white men. They show pictures of the men on TV. They’re standing in front of that flag. That hate flag.”

Keira and her parents attend a candlelight vigil for the murdered couple and unexpectedly see Bianca and her parents there. When they pass Bianca’s house on the way home, the hate flag is gone. There is now space for the two friends to become even closer.

I know of no other picture book that addresses the issues surrounding the Confederate flag. This is a must-have for elementary libraries everywhere. (But I’m afraid that adding this to a school or classroom library in Ron DeSantis’s Florida might result in charges against the librarian!)

Richie Partington, MLIS

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