The flags of the Confederate States of America were very important and a matter of great pride to those citizens living in the Confederacy. They are also a matter of great pride for their descendants as part of their heritage and history.
— Winston Churchill
Genuine Confederate Flag quotations
The flag that was the symbol of slavery on the high seas for a long time was not the Confederate battle flag, it was sadly the Stars and Stripes.
I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks.
For black folks, the Confederate flag represents the same thing that the Nazi flag represents to the Jews. There is absolutely no difference when we look at it. Now, white folks try to explain it away like, 'Oh, it's OK.' But when you're black, it is not OK. It represents oppression and murder.
The Confederate flag represents the same thing to blacks as the Nazi flag represents to Jews,.
Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery . . . is his natural and normal condition.
The Confederate flag is one of those things that should only be seen on t-shirts, belt buckles and bumper stickers to help the rest of us identify the worst people in the world.
I am not in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office.
I think the ties to slavery and the terrible tragedy that followed the Civil War with Jim Crow and racial violence is closely linked to the Confederate flag.
The only argument you can make against having Confederate flag as spectacularly shown as it is around the south is the Nazis. I mean, it would be like having the swastika flag...
I hate The Confederate cause. I've always felt that they are our Nazis and the rebel flag was our swastika.
Anyone who says the Confederate Flag is a symbol of hate should be required to go to sensitivity training classes.
I heard someone say that concern over the [Confederate] Flag is sensitivity to micro-aggressions, to which my response is to say that kidnapping and enslaving people, breaking up families, terrorizing families, if that's not a macro-aggression, I don't know what is.
A thing when I was writing the movie 'The hateful eight' was, I hate The Confederate cause. I've always felt that they are our Nazis and the rebel flag was our swastika. So I totally have no love for that whole romance for that Antebellum time period.
I think Confederate Battle Flag is a symbol that causes a great deal of division and reminds us of a really hurtful legacy and past... I think there are some Southerners, black and white, who feel as though the rest of the country looks down on the South as uneducated and backward. And for some people, that was a symbol of defiance against that.
Respect whatever it is [ Confederate flag] that you have to respect, because it was a point in time, and put it in a museum.
My position on how to address the Confederate flag is clear.
In Florida, we acted, moving the flag from the state grounds to a museum, where it belonged.
Note to secessionist Texans: now is the time to wave the Confederate Flag.
I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks. We can't beat George Bush unless we appeal to a broad cross-section of Democrats.
This is said to us, even as this counterfeit president has legalized the Confederate Flag in Mississippi.
I think, in many people's minds, the Confederate battle flag is not only a memorial to our ancestors, which is perfectly OK, but also a symbol of white superiority and an inclination for people to believe that even slavery would've been OK.
It's hard when the worst people in the country are cheering, the people with the confederate flag, the people that do anti-Semitism on Twitter, that's difficult for a lot of people in this country. But, you know, I do think an inaugural, for example, is almost always an act of national healing.
I know the GOP is called the stupid party, but the idea that Republicans can have the Confederate flag hung around their neck is ridiculous! It's a Democrat flag! The flags - states that seceded during the Civil War were all Democrat states. That's their flag. The slave states were Democrat states! The racist states until the 1960s were Democrat states!
The [Confederate] Flag is - literally - sewed division.
People claim it means different things to different people, but it harkens back to the pro-slavery side of the war.
It's time for the [Confederate] Flag to come down, because it just doesn't represent who we are as a people, as Americans anymore.
We have, for generations, been trying to be more inclusive of the word Southern.
And a symbol like the confederate flag indicates white only are allowed into that world. And removing the Confederate flag from public view to the pages of history is long overdue.
[Confederate flag] it's a symbol of racial hatred.
I believe that the flag of the Confederate States of America is a painful symbol and reminder of racial injustice and slavery which Abraham Lincoln denounced from here over 150 years ago.
Any Southern nationalist movement, especially one that wraps itself in the Confederate flag, is going to be viewed with suspicion, given the historical record.
I intend to talk about race during this election in the South because the Republicans have been talking about it since 1968 in order to divide us. And I'm going to bring us together. Because you know what? You know what? White folks in the South who drive pickup trucks with Confederate flag decals in the back ought to be voting with us and not them, because their kids don't have health insurance either and their kids need better schools too.