“The Civil War never ended”: Jesse Jackson on the racist agenda which must come down with the Confed

[DonViejo]

“The Civil War never ended”: Jesse Jackson on the racist agenda which must come down with the Confederate flag

Exclusive: “South Carolina must decide if massacre is a moment of embarrassment or transformation,” he tells Salon

DAVID MASCIOTRA

Since the homicidal evil named Dylann Roof claimed the lives of nine black worshipers in Charleston, South Carolina, the country has commissioned a conversation about racial harmony and diversity. The audible defeat in President Obama’s voice when he made yet another call for gun control to millions of deaf ears was an early signal of legislative dysfunction, and the political system’s inability to react meaningfully to crisis.

Aware of the difficulties of doing anything important, not unlike the exhausted president, American liberals could succumb, as they often do, to the temptation of settling for what is unimportant. Like a sick man ingesting a placebo, America will enforce the long overdue removal of the Confederate Flag, and even discontinue airing television programs with the flag visible on automobiles — but resist organizating behind reforms and politics of substance.

Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader originally from Greenville, South Carolina, was recently in his home state to visit his mother and to witness the ceremonial removal of the Confederate Flag.

“There are really two flags,” he explained to me when we discussed the matter on the phone. “In 1865, Robert E. Lee surrendered the Confederate Battle Flag to Abraham Lincoln after the South lost the war. That flag not only represented slavery, but also secession and sedition. The flag we see now emerged after President Truman desegregated the military, and the Dixiecrat Party formed to fight the civil rights movement.”

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http://www.salon.com/2015/07/13/the_civil_war_never_ended_jesse_jackson_on_the_racist_agenda_which_must_come_down_with_the_confederate_flag/