re: Alabama Governor Bentley has Confederate flags removed from Capitol grounds

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I visited Montgomery in the early 1990s. But have not been back since. I took a tour of the state capitol. I don't remember seeing this flag. I don't think the tour guide talked about it. If it was there, they certainly weren't making a big show out of its presence

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If you were there before 1993, you'd have seen a bigassed naval ensign flying over the capitol. It flew from 1963-1993. George Wallace had it raised during his fights with the feds.

It was removed in 1993 and small but historically correct flags were raised at the monument basically to appease those that wanted to keep one over the dome.

To be honest, no matter what you think those flags stood for then or today, nobody really has a reason to be upset over their removal because for the first century after the end of the war, they weren't flown at the capitol. They were only raised as a symbol of defiance in the face of the federal government over integration and other civil rights issues. I can't speak to the situation in other states, but in Alabama, no longstanding tradition was eliminated. Instead, things were actually set back to normal.