MSNBC Guest: Confed. Flag Removal Is the ‘Beginning of the End of the Civil War’

‘I believe that it’s a recognition that the South is more than just one story’

MSNBC Guest: Confederate Flag Removal Is the ‘Beginning of the End of the Civil War’ (NewsBusters)

On July 10, following the removal of the Confederate battle flag from Capitol grounds in South Carolina, a panel discussed the historic event on MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports. Guest host Craig Melvin brought Pulitzer Prize winning author Isabel Wilkerson to the program. He asked the author to put the removal of the flag into “historical perspective.” Wilkerson remarked that we are “witnessing today, perhaps, truly the beginning of the end of the Civil War.” 

Wilkerson – a former New York Times Chicago bureau chief and author of The Warmth of Other Suns, which is being made into an FX series – explained that the Civil War “was just the beginning of what would be a long experience of segregation and subjugation and Jim Crow. This flag had been raised again in 1961, it’s been there for 50 years.” She continued: “And, generations from now, people will want to know why it flew for so long. And we will have to be in a position to tell them and to know the history and tell them why.” 

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