No, she burned the old *Georgia* flag, which had been designed specifically by white supremacists as a show of defiance to desegregation in 1956.

Let's dig in.
When the flag was changed, Georgia's governor was Democrat Marvin Griffin, a Klansman's son who had campaigned as "the white man's candidate" with a promise to prevent the state's schools from being integrated "come hell or high water."
Marvin Griffin might not be a household name any more, but he was famous in the 1950s as a regional leader of "massive resistance" to desegregation.

He toured the South stirring up trouble, and even helped persuade Arkansas' Gov. Faubus to resist integration at Central High.
Meanwhile, the Georgia General Assembly was likewise filled with segregationist Democrats who devoted themselves in the 1955-1956 session to doing everything they could to defy the Supreme Court's recent ruling in Brown and prevent integration of the schools.
The main plan was a drastic emergency scheme that would shut down all public schools ordered to integrate, set up fly-by-night private schools for whites, and then use taxpayer money to provide tuition grants to let children go to school there.

But that was just the start.
A flurry of other segregationist legislation passed the General Assembly that term.

One bill made it a felony, punishable by two years in jail and a heavy fine, for any school official to use taxpayer money for "mixed classes." Support was so strong it passed the House 105-2.
Tons of laws like this. In the first month of the 1955-56 session alone, the General Assembly demanded teachers take anti-integration oaths, considered fines for integrated sporting events, and called for a constitutional amendment against the integration of the US armed forces.
The General Assembly created a new education commission which devoted itself to a book-banning crusade.

A sociology textbook, for instance, was banned because it followed "the NAACP line" and tried to "condition" children to the idea that "color doesn't matter."
As it did all this, the Georgia General Assembly still insisted the Supreme Court had no right to integrate schools.

In February 1956, a resolution declaring Brown "null, void and of no force and effect" passed the Georgia House 178 to 1 and the Georgia Senate 39 to 0.
"You have moved decisively to let the whole nation know that Georgia will stand firm for its traditions and ideals," Gov. Griffin said, "come hell or high water."

The General Assembly then moved to impeach Justices of the Supreme Court who tried to "subvert" the Constitution.
Importantly, it was at this *exact* moment -- in February 1956 -- that the Georgia General Assembly changed the state flag to the one in question here.

They added the Confederate "battle flag" which had just gained fame as a banner for Dixiecrats and white supremacists.
Legislators said this was celebrate the Confederacy, but that was a ruse.

The battle flag replaced red-and-white stripes (L) -- patterned on the *official* Confederate flag (R) -- added to the state flag in 1879 by a Confederate veteran as "a tribute to the Confederate dead."
Everyone knew the new flag was meant as yet another sign of "massive resistance" to integration from the General Assembly.

"It will serve notice," House Leader Denmark Groover said, "that we intend to uphold what we stood for, will stand for, and will fight for."
And that's exactly what the old Georgia state flag was -- a banner designed by segregationists to signal their defense of white supremacy and their defiance of the Supreme Court's landmark civil rights decision. Period.
In 1992, when Stacey Abrams and other African American students burned the state flag, it was still the flag that had been designed as a celebration of the white supremacist campaign to keep black children out of Georgia's schools "come hell or high water."
And lest we think that it was only African Americans who saw this, remember that Georgia's Governor Zell Miller -- by no means a left-wing radical -- was at that very moment campaigning to get rid of that segregationist relic.

Here, listen to this: c-span.org/video/?c451619…
The idea that taking action against a banner of white supremacy in 1992 is something shameful is ludicrous, but the idea that it was somehow radical is even more so.

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More from @KevinMKruse

Feb 1
My trash cans can’t be racist either, but if I repeatedly dump my garbage on my black neighbors’ yard because they’re black, that is racist.
The same people who have been saying “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” nonstop for decades are somehow baffled by “highways aren’t racist, but highway planners can be racist”
Also, this argument suggests that federal policy was once not “woke” and perhaps even racist and, huh, I wonder if there’s a theory to analyze that
Read 4 tweets
Jan 31
In 1922, Klan leaders (including N.B. Forrest) announced plans for a new University of America.

They said the new college would focus on teaching Christianity and a history that promoted "Americanism," in order to explain to students how "this is a white man's country."
Almost exactly a century ago -- from the Atlanta Constitution (2/5/1922)
Oh Lord, that's right -- the site they're discussing here is now a synagogue.
Read 4 tweets
Jan 25
Twitter aside, I'm going to go with the time we went to Nobu for my birthday and David Hasselhoff was VERY LOUDLY holding court at the table next to us.
I was @kaj33’s faculty host when he got an honorary degree. I had all these questions about his activism but the seating arrangement meant I didn’t get a chance to talk much. When I did, I panicked and asked about the book tour he was on: “so, I guess you’ve been flying a lot?”
The nicest celebrities were probably @CobieSmulders and @TaranKillam, who we sat next to at the @iamsambee Not the WHCD event. Very nice, very normal, swapped kid pics. My only regret was not raving about TK’s Drunk History episode.

(Sam Bee, also nice as hell. Just great.)
Read 4 tweets
Jan 21
Honestly, I don't even know where to begin with this one.
For all the article's claims that historians thought Biden would be another FDR, there's a link to a Doris Kearns Goodwin interview and ... that's it.
The take on the New Deal is wrong -- FDR wasn't laser focused on economic issues alone, but had programs for conservation, public power, the arts, etc. from the start.
Read 6 tweets
Oct 25, 2021
If you’re wondering why this ad never mentions what the scary book was that she wanted to ban or what course it was used in, well, it was Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel Beloved and the class was senior-year AP English.
If you think your high school senior can’t handle college-level novels in a college-credit course, maybe he shouldn’t take Advanced Placement English?
A lot of people are embarrassed for her son, but (unless I’m mistaken) he seems to be a 27-year-old Republican Party lawyer so he’s probably fine with all this?

washingtonpost.com/local/educatio…

nytimes.com/2020/12/18/sty…
Read 4 tweets
Oct 14, 2021
Hey, it looks like Ted Cruz has nothing better to do than respond to three-day-old tweets.

Must be nice to have that kind of free time with no responsibilities and nothing going on in the world.

Well, let's dig in!
First of all, no, "there is no Biden vaccine mandate" that's been put into effect yet.

Here's a news story about it yesterday. (Which I guess you'll get around to reading a couple days from now?)

nbcnews.com/politics/white…
You might not be aware that "next week" hasn't actually happened yet, but, uh ... it hasn't?

So, no, there is not currently a "Biden vaccine mandate" in place.
Read 7 tweets

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