“The South is the last bastion of liberty and independence. I know we’re going to lose eventually.”

[Atman]

8. Of course, it isn't just "The South."

Sure, the Confederate flag represents the racism and hatred of The South, but The North was not immune. I spent my early years growing up in a rural New England town. My dad was a civil rights worker and he sported a sticker on his car which showed a black hand and a white hand together across an American flag. We used to get yelled at for having that sticker on the car. Larry Garron, a Boston Patriots (remember when?) star player, was one of our neighbors. I remember a couple of times when he came to our house for "cocktail hour," and the buzz it would create in the neighborhood because we had a black man over to our house! My parents' best friends were a mixed-race couple, unheard of in the early sixties. The guy was/is still pretty well known, at least in certain circles...he lives in Jamaica and played one of the baddies in the James Bond flick, "Live and Let Die." Still, fame and notoriety didn't matter. We were those people who associated with the black folks.

It was quite a different time. Or was it?