Modern display of the Confederate battle flag

The modern display began during the 1948 United States presidential election when it was used by the Dixiecrats, southern Democrats who opposed civil rights for African Americans.

The rectangular version, similar to the battle flag used by the Army of Tennessee under General Joseph E. Johnston,[13][14] is the most popular today and common in modern reproductions.

[40] Historian John Coski noted that the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the "most visible, active, and effective defender of the flag", "carried forward into the twenty-first century, virtually unchanged, the Lost Cause historical interpretations and ideological vision formulated at the turn of the twentieth.

[49] Another poll, administered by Economist / YouGov after racially motivated violence in Charlottesville in August 2017, showed that by a 5% margin – 43% to 38% – the Confederate Flag was viewed as a symbol of southern pride rather than racism.

[55]Southern historian Gordon Rhea further wrote in 2011: It is no accident that Confederate symbols have been the mainstay of white supremacist organizations, from the Ku Klux Klan to the skinheads.

[63] Calls for the removal of Confederate flags from Jefferson Davis Park in southwestern Washington state began in 2015, after the Charleston church shooting, by Rev.

Their visibility, and events in other parts of the nation regarding Confederate memorials, still make these symbols a local focus of strong emotions, especially in the aftermath of the white nationalist Unite the Right rally August 11–12, 2017.

[66][67] Eighteen flags fly at Civic Center Plaza in front of the San Francisco City Hall, each representing important events in United States history.

He quoted an explanation given several years before to historian Don Harrison Doyle and reported in Divided Nations (2002) by a professor of American Literature in Naples: "We too are a defeated people.

"[71] Writer Vladimiro Bottone, in an article of July 15, 2004[72] on Naples newspaper Corriere del Mezzogiorno, adds that stadium is the "place [where] the first virulent and explicit opposition between North and South of the post-war period was made visible in a mass dimension" [...].

[74] The music video for Cyndi Laupers' 1984 song "She Bop" features: a man on a motorcycle wearing a confederate patch on his jacket, as the cute bad boy.

[89] This was likely done to give off a rebellious tone rather than glorification of the Confederacy, especially considering their vocal advocacy for racial equality as well as dedicated support for the White Panther Party.

[91] In December 2020, Twitch announced a new policy towards harassment and hateful content, to take effect on January 22, 2021, aimed to better protect marginalized users of the service.

While the new policy is more strict, Twitch said this also includes a larger sliding scale of remedies or punishments to better deal with edge cases, such as temporarily blocking one's channel for a short time rather than a full ban.

"[98][99] In June 2016, Republicans in Congress attempted to attach an amendment to a bill funding the fight against the Zika virus epidemic that would have reversed the flag ban.

These laws, combined with poll taxes, literacy tests, and extrajudicial violence such as lynchings, disenfranchised African American voters for the next ninety years.

[108] According to historian John M. Coski: The flag changes in Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida coincided with the passage of formal Jim Crow segregation laws throughout the South.

These efforts succeeded in January 2001 when Georgia governor Roy Barnes introduced a design that, though continuing to depict the Battle Flag, significantly reduced its prominence.

[147] In its decision in Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, the court ruled that license plates are governmental speech, so the government may decide what to have printed on them.

[164] On July 6, 2009, the Atlantic Coast Conference announced a decision to move three future baseball tournaments out of South Carolina citing miscommunications with the NAACP concerning the display of the Confederate flag in the state.

These groups usually passively condone the flag's association with racism and white supremacy, while also invoking the shared Ulster-Scot heritage between some leaders of the Confederacy and Northern Irish Protestants.

In addition to the Charleston killings, the governors cited the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, issued days earlier.

[206][207][208][209][210] Calls to remove the Confederate flag from the State House grounds, as well as debates over the context of its symbolic nature, were renewed after the attack[211][212] by several prominent figures, including President Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, and Jeb Bush.

[215] "With the winds that started blowing last week, I figured it would just be a matter of time," said Ken Thrasher, speaking for the South Carolina division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, which opposed the flag's removal.

Clementa Pinckney on June 26, 2015, before 5,000 congregants at the College of Charleston, President Barack Obama acknowledged that the shooting had catalyzed a broad movement, backed by both Republicans and Democrats, to remove the flag from official public display.

Following 13 hours of debate and over 60 attempts to amend the bill, the vote in the South Carolina House of Representatives to remove the flag was passed by a two-thirds majority (94–20) on July 9.

[161][229] In June 2015, a controversy at The Citadel over a Confederate Naval Jack, model 1863–1865, ended when the school's Board of Visitors voted in favor of moving the flag from the Summerall Chapel to what was called "an appropriate location on campus.

"[234][235] Shortly afterward, a number of other retailers, including Amazon.com, eBay, Etsy, Sears (which also operates Kmart) and Target announced that they would also be removing Confederate flag items from sale.

[251][252] The American auto racing sanctioning body NASCAR, which has roots in the Southern United States and has many fans who fly the Confederate flag at campsites, has previously prevented the Sons of Confederate Veterans organization from sponsoring cars bearing the flag twice in 1993 (intended to be driven by Clay Young) and 2009 (intended to be driven by James Hylton in an ARCA race during that year's Speedweeks).

On June 8, 2016, Mariann Edgar Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and the interim dean of the cathedral, said they would be removed "as soon as we can do it" and replaced, at least temporarily, with plain glass.