Jimmy Carter worked to raise a new flag and exclude the Rebel battle emblem.
Posted on 05/04/2003 1:57:47 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
After flying for only two years, the blue state flag raised by former Gov. Roy Barnes probably will be hauled down this week.
The idea for a referendum on the state flag belongs to his successor, Gov. Sonny Perdue. That vote comes in March.
But the immediate removal of the Barnes flag -- in favor of one with a Confederate pedigree -- can be traced to former President Jimmy Carter. Key lawmakers say Carter, who is also a former Georgia governor, stood at the edges of negotiations throughout the three-month flag fight.
Jimmy Carter worked to raise a new flag and exclude the Rebel battle emblem.
It was Carter who insisted that, to stave off a statewide referendum on the Rebel battle emblem, the Barnes flag had to come down and a new flag had to be raised, said the two lawmakers who consulted him about the issue.
"He hammered away at that," said state Sen. George Hooks (D-Americus), who met several times with Carter over the issue. One meeting included House Speaker Terry Coleman (D-Eastman).
Carter's involvement demonstrates the grip that Perdue's flag referendum had on the highest reaches of Georgia politics -- and the forces that were at work to defuse its most volatile aspect, the vote on the Confederate battle emblem.
The former president was one of many people who feared that an extended debate over a return to the segregationist era's 1956 state flag would leave Georgians racially divided, according to those who spoke with him about the issue.
Carter, who was governor from 1971 to 1975, declined to comment on his behind-the-scenes role. A spokeswoman issued a statement quoting the former president as praising the new flag, modeled closely after the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy, as "an attractive symbol for all Georgians."
The new flag will go up as soon as Perdue signs the legislation. A nonbinding referendum, pitting the new flag against the Barnes flag, will be held March 2.
A spokeswoman for the governor, Erin O'Brien, said the signing delay was partly logistical: Prototypes of the flag are being stitched together this week.
Barnes declined to comment about Carter's role in the recent flag debate. But Bobby Kahn, Barnes' former top aide, said: "Our object all along was to avoid the very divisiveness that we've seen over the last four months. Anything that prevents a return of the Confederate battle emblem is a good thing."
During his campaign for governor, Perdue promised a vote on the state flag.
His legislation, unveiled Feb. 12, took a number of twists and turns. Originally, the governor called for a one-day nonbinding referendum that would involve three flags. First, voters would have made a yes-or-no decision on keeping the Barnes flag. Then they would have had to immediately choose between the 1956 state flag, with its Confederate battle emblem, and the state flag that preceded it, which dated to 1879.
Audience polled
Perdue chatted briefly with Carter, 78, about participating in a "racial healing" campaign that would come before the flag vote. Carter agreed, but soon he was headed in another direction.
The former president was involved only tangentially in the 2001 effort to change the flag, aides to Barnes say.
And Carter let it be known he didn't like the looks of the blue flag that resulted.
The former president preferred the pre-1956 flag, a simple design with three horizontal stripes -- alternating red and white -- and a vertical blue band with the state seal. That flag engaged Carter's sense of history, Hooks said, and was the banner the former president would endorse.
During a building dedication at East Georgia College in Swainsboro on Feb. 18, the same week Carter spoke with Perdue about the issue, the former president asked the gathered crowd which of the three flags they preferred.
A few hands went up in favor of the Barnes flag. A similar number endorsed the 1956 flag and its Rebel emblem.
But a majority wanted the pre-1956 flag.
In mid-March, House Majority Leader Jimmy Skipper (D-Americus), whose district includes Carter's hometown of Plains, offered an alternative to Perdue's flag referendum: a binding up-or-down vote on the Barnes flag on March 2, followed, if necessary, by another binding vote in July that included the 1956 flag with its battle emblem.
The Skipper plan became the working version of the flag referendum in the House.
White rural Georgia Democrats insisted they could not antagonize their voters by removing the July vote on the 1956 flag and its Confederate battle emblem. "Carter didn't want it, but he didn't see any way to avoid it," Hooks said.
At his Nobel Peace Prize dinner in Atlanta on March 18, Carter spoke about the referendum with members of metro Atlanta's political and business elite, including Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, U.S. Rep. John Lewis and former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young.
On March 19, the former president met with Hooks and Coleman at the Carter Center library. Both men have deep personal connections to the former president. Hooks holds Carter's old state Senate seat. Carter has known Coleman since he was a young man. In a speech he would give to the Legislature a few weeks later, Carter said he almost considers the new speaker "one of my sons."
Carter focused on what he saw as the flaw in Skipper's plan -- that if Perdue and rural Democrats insisted on keeping the July vote on the Confederate battle emblem, then every effort should be made to avoid it, by making the flag voted on in March as popular as possible.
The Barnes flag, he and others agreed, lacked a strong constituency among voters.
"He was saying that if you have to have a referendum, the first vote ought to be on a flag that had historic significance -- a direct relation to Confederate history," Coleman said. It would need to be a flag with a Confederate heritage but without the baggage of the battle emblem, which many see as linked to the KKK and segregation.
A flag rooted in past
As it turned out, Rep. Bobby Franklin (R-Cobb County) had suggested that the Legislature simply adopt a flag loaded with Rebel history -- a closer version of the Stars and Bars.
On April 4, when House Democrats brokered a compromise with Perdue and House Republicans, the Franklin flag was in and the Barnes flag was out.
The Perdue referendum would undergo another transformation: Ultimately, the July vote would be dropped, and the Barnes flag would return as part of the March 2004 vote. But the Franklin flag, with modifications by Hooks, would remain as the new state flag -- essentially as Carter originally advised.
The flag to be raised this week can be considered a cousin to the pre-1956 flag that Carter wanted. Both have their origins in the Stars and Bars.
In his prepared statement, which expressed pride in the roles that Coleman, Hooks and House Rules Chairman Calvin Smyre (D-Columbus) played in the outcome, Carter said, "I am pleased that the new flag will reflect our state's historic banner."
I'm not surprised former President Carter had a hand in this- he was always a busybody. We called him "Wee Jimmy" when he was Governor.
( "He's like a Real Governor, only smaller... )
As far as the flag is concerned, what really mattered to me was the arrogant, high-handed way Barnes went about changing it- not the way it looks.
That said, I voted for Perdue, and defended him- but I won't do that again... first thing he did was try to raise taxes instead of cutting spending.
The state, county, and local governments are bloated and waste-laden from the excesses of "the decade of frauds"-- we need to slash spending first, fire a bunch of bureaucrats, and only after that is done, consider more taxes.
Something that needs to be done in all states!
Exactly- I voted for him as a protest against Barnes, and if his next opponent is someone I cannot support, I will not vote for either. Perdue's a big dissapointment.
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