Georgia's Gov. Zell Miller wants to remove a stain from his state's flag -- the stars and bars of the Confederacy. That insignia is powerfully, negatively symbolic of times best forgotten: the era of slavery, the fight of the old South to keep it, and the long era of segregation that followed.
The circumstances in which the Confederate design was included on the Georgia state flag in 1956 add further insult to black Americans and all who believe in civil rights. Legislators back then adopted the provocative symbol to protest a rising tide of integration -- to thumb their collective nose at aspirations for equality.
Civil-rights organizations have tried for several years to persuade not only Georgia to get rid of the Confederate flag design, but also the other three states that use it in one form or another: Alabama, Mississippi and South Carolina. Georgia's Mr. Miller, a first-term Democrat, had not taken a stand on the flag issue until now. He said he will introduce legislation to change the flag, primarily to enhance the state's image and in preparation for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
Whatever the motive, Mr. Miller's change of heart on the flag and the remarks that accompanied his decision cast him in the mold of a "new South" governor. "We need to lay the days of segregation to rest, to let bygones be bygones and rest our souls. We need to do what is right," he said.
If the Legislature goes along, official Georgia will no longer fly the symbol often hoisted defiantly by Ku Klux Klan members, racist rednecks and skinheads everywhere. Everyone knows what that flag means when waved by such fringe elements. It is as offensive to those who prize civil rights as any derogatory racial epithet.
Over the past 30 years, the South in many ways has led the march toward integration and racial reconciliation. Wouldn't it be appropriate if those four states of the old Confederacy at last hauled down the hurtful symbol?