Lowering the flag was more than just symbolism

America, especially South Carolina, probably is weary of hearing about, talking about, debating and dissecting the Confederate battle flag. But hang in there for just a little while longer.

Let’s not abandon the topic of the flag just yet. Let’s take a moment to acknowledge that what occurred in regard to the flag following the massacre of nine members of Charleston’s historic Emanuel AME Church was a big deal.

It seems easy to dismiss it as otherwise, as a passing flurry of attention to a moldy banner from a region where old times are not forgotten but should have been a long time ago. And now that South Carolina has lowered the rebel flag from its Statehouse grounds, some might think we can dismiss it as a welcome symbolic gesture but one whose impact soon will fade as we settle back into our traditional roles.

But symbols can be powerful. That’s why the bigots and the misguided Southern romanticists have clung so tenaciously to the battle flag for so long.

And hauling it down was more than just symbolic; it was a significant act of both renunciation and good will. Lowering the flag wasn’t a courtesy to one group of people; it was the declaration of many that this flag no longer could serve a dual purpose, that it has been too thoroughly appropriated by those who use it to personify their hatred and prejudice.

That was abundantly clear when Dylann Roof, the accused shooter in the Charleston massacre, waved the flag with one hand while holding a pistol in the other and declaring his intention to start a race war.

The political mechanics of lowering the flag in South Carolina were agonizing at some points. But all in all, it went smoothly and remarkably swiftly, considering that the flag has flown somewhere on or near the Statehouse for more than 50 years.

All of a sudden, a kindred spirit of common purpose emerged from surprising places. Sure, there were those of strong conviction who always have hated the flag. But this new coalition also included those who had wavered between aversion and sentimentality regarding the flag, those who had decided to just ignore it, and those who’d already had a bellyful of talking about it.

The shooting shocked them into action. It was the step too far, an event so unspeakable that no decent person could look the other way.

While South Carolina was the center of this sudden eruption of change, the waves also spread across the nation. Corporations announced that they would no longer manufacture or sell Confederate flags or merchandise depicting them. States looked at ways to bar the use of the flag on specialty license plates.

NASCAR, that most Southern of institutions, asked fans to leave their rebel flags at home. Overnight, in big ways and in smaller gestures, Americans were saying the flag of Dixie no longer is welcome.

They have rejected the pretense that the flag can have a benign meaning after the Charleston shooting. Go ahead and honor your ancestors but find a different way to do it.

And, ultimately, that rejection will make a difference. It shows that more and more of us recognize the pain and anguish caused by and contained in that banner. It ushers in a new day.

Symbols count. They’re shorthand for core beliefs.

And less important now than the symbol of the rebel flag itself is the deeply satisfying symbolism of two South Carolina state troopers lowering it and whisking it away to a museum, where it has long belonged.

This story was originally published July 16, 2015 at 3:45 PM with the headline "Lowering the flag was more than just symbolism."