I enjoyed your piece about the Confederate flag, but the flag that is so offensive to most people is not the flag that flew over the Confederate capitol in Montgomery or over the one in Richmond. The flag often miscalled the “Stars and Bars” was flown only in battle. The “Bonnie Blue Flag” was the unofficial first flag of the South and flew from 1860 to 1861. It is a field of blue with a single star in its center and was popularized by the song of the same name. The battle flag gained its offensive reputation during the civil rights era and was taken up as the standard of the Ku Klux Klan at that time.

For those who wish to express their Southern pride, I suggest that they fly the Bonnie Blue Flag rather than the Stars and Bars, as it is the true Confederate flag. The controversial banner rightly belongs in a museum or flying over a cemetery of Confederate dead. As a native Southerner, I feel great pride in my ancestors, who did not own slaves and gave their lives to protect their homes during the War Between the States, but I find the current use of the battle flag offensive for the same reasons as others.