Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 14:24:22 -0500

From: jerry miller millerj[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]FRANKLINCOLL.EDU

Subject: Re: GA flag (nothing to do with lang)



Interesting background on the stars and bars in Georgia -- but it raised a

tangential question for me (again, not necessarily related to dialect) about

the rise of the "NEVER" as a slogan for the anti-integrationists.

In the North (well, Indiana, whose attitudes sometimes make it

difficult to differentiate), I recall the "NOW" buttons (as in "Integration

Now" or "End Segregation Now") appearing first, followed by the reactionary

"NEVER" buttons (I saw an off-duty court bailiff wearing one -- the first

time I'd seen one, and I assumed it was his response to all the "NOW"

buttons and bumper stickers).

Which came first, NOW or NEVER?



Jerry Miller



At 12:49 PM 10/28/97 CST, you wrote:

This has nothing to do with dialect, so you may want to use your

delete key.



As David Johns said, the current Georgia flag, with the Confederate

battle flag incorporated, was adopted in the 1950s. The rest of the

story is that this new flag design was created by a legislature

expressing its rebellion against the federal government, which had

required desegregation of schools in the 1954 Supreme Court decision,

Brown v. Board of Education.



The climate of the times is described by Ralph McGill in one of the

best books about the South I have ever read (UGA Press), The South and

the Southerner:

"Never," was what they said in the Deep South, red of face, arms

flailing, or fists clenched, pounding on tables or lecterns. "No

Communist-led court would ever succeed in putting niggers in the

schools."



So the Georgia flag, at least, is not a venerable tradition, but a

blatantly racist statement. Many public schools (among others) no

longer will fly the state flag.



Ellen

ellen.johnson[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]wku.edu

http://www.wku.edu/~ejohnson