On a wall at home I have a framed drawing of a peach with these words superimposed over it:
I’ve got my…
Feet in the clay
Head in the mountains
Eyes on the shore
Heart in Atlanta…and
Georgia on my mind.
If I recall correctly, it was a gift from one of my sisters many years ago when I besmirched the family name and moved from Georgia to the uncultured state of Illinois. I think it was her way of reminding me not to forget the land of sweet tea, front porch swings, saying “Yes, ma’am,” and “No, ma’am,” and telling stories that are sometimes true, sometimes not, but always sound better the way they are told.
She needn’t have worried. In my thirty years of residency in the Land of Lincoln I have become even more Southern than I was in Georgia. It has been a way to forge an identity that stands out from the crowd. My wife says I sound more Southern than my family who still dwells below the Mason-Dixon Line. Though I moved my ecclesiastical ordination into the liberal United Church of Christ almost thirty years ago, many people claim they can still hear a little bit of the Southern Baptist in me when I preach. And when someone hears my accent and asks where I am from, I announce proudly, “I’m a Georgia boy.”
And, in case you are wondering—yes, I used to own a Confederate flag. I had it displayed in a flag case on a basement wall surrounded by memorabilia of my ancestors, some recent, some not so recent. If a visitor to my home asked where it came from I usually concocted a story about how my great-great Grandfather carried it boldly into the battle of Atlanta. It sounded more exotic that explaining it was a 1970s souvenir from Six Flags Over Texas.
I was not unaware of the controversy dividing the nation about the Confederate flag. I grew up in the last days of the Jim Crow South. I remember cringing when I saw the flag proudly displayed at KKK cross burnings and segregationist rallies. I recognized that it symbolized, for African-Americans, this country’s historic sin of racism. But it never meant that to me. To me it symbolized a culture that, for all its faults—and they are many—shaped me in certain values and graces I still treasure, especially since I live now in exile from that culture in miles as well as years.
My wife worried that my flag gave a negative impression to people who did not know me well. “I know you’re not like that,” she said, “but not everybody does.” I told her that was their problem, not mine, and, besides, Southerners do not like anybody telling us what to do.
Then one day as I was driving through Elgin, Illinois where I was living at the time, I chanced to get behind two men in a pickup truck plastered all over with angry, hateful bumper stickers, and fluttering in the breeze from the bed of the truck was a large Confederate flag. I was disgusted, heartbroken, and embarrassed. If even here in Illinois that flag rendered me guilty by association with such rancor and resentment, then it did not matter what others associated with me, but what I associated with myself. I went home and took down my flag. As I took it off the wall I felt like a traitor to my roots and region, but I decided I had a higher loyalty to Jesus who said, “No one can serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24). Since I could not align those words with the sickening symbolism that flag had come to embody, I had to make a choice. And the choice was clear.
These days America is in the process of confronting its racist past by removing statues and monuments celebrating Confederate generals. Every figure that comes down takes a piece of my heart with it. I cannot help it. My history—warts and all—is too woven into my psyche to be cast aside like yesterday’s newspaper. But I am also aware of the position of privilege I have enjoyed throughout my life. I do not know what it is like to worry where I put my hands if stopped by the police. I never had to have “the talk” with my children when they came of age. Until I can walk in those shoes (which will never be possible), I will, as the apostle Paul says, “Forget what lies behind, and press on to what lies ahead” (Philippians 3:13). And if that means no more Confederate monuments in front of the courthouse, then, ok, take them down.
Besides I am comforted by the words of one of my favorite Southern writers, Rick Bragg, who said, “I do not need a statue or flag to know that I am Southern. I can taste it in the food, feel it in my heart, and hear it in the language of my kin.” And nothing can take that away from me.