In 1993, the brandishing of the Confederate battle flag at Carver High School in Winston-Salem, NC, exposed significant racial tension in the local community.
On March 5, 1993, a group of white students skipped a school assembly on Black history and drove around the school grounds waving Confederate battle flags. The next week, three Black students physically assaulted a white student who had been involved in the drive-by.[1]
So significant was this explosion of racial tension that the Winston-Salem Chronicle ran a full spread on the incident, including three articles covering the fight. However, each article was written from a slightly different angle. Chronicle reporter Mark R. Ross wrote two of the pieces and correspondent Karen M. Hannon wrote the other.
All the articles identified the attackers as Horace Cutter, 17, Greg Cutter, 18, and Rodney Hill, 16, and the victim as Walter Gray Smith Jr., 18. Ross wrote that Smith was singled out from the crowd of white students involved in the flag-waving because he was mistakenly identified as the ringleader.[2] However, in her article published in the same spread, Hannon reported that Smith was targeted because of comments he made after the flag incident. Student Raymond Banner told Hannon that in an English class they shared, Smith told a group of Black students that “he was a redneck and that he didn’t care nothing about black people.” Banner then allegedly overheard a few Black students say “They gonna get it.”
Walter Marshall, one of two black members of the Winston-Salem Forsyth County school board at the time, blamed much of the tension on students from Belews Creek, a majority white and conservative part of the city. He told Moss: “They’re the ones who initiate a lot of the problems. [Their parents] have a Klan and Nazi mentality and [students] bring that type of attitude to school.”[3]
Hannon also wrote about a petition that had begun circulating in the school the same week as the flag waving, drawing a comparison between what Malcolm X symbolized and what the Confederate flag symbolized. According to Banner, white students at the school argued if Black students could wear Malcolm X t-shirts, they should be allowed to carry Confederate flags.[4]
It is unclear what the results of the petition were, but its circulation sparked the publication of an article in the Chronicle criticizing the comparison. Malcolm X, the author wrote, unlike the Confederate flag, did not stand for racism but for “self-determination, racial pride and self-defense in the face of white violence.” The author blamed the beliefs stated in the petition on a lack of proper education:
Students will continue to be misinformed as long as publications…portray the black leader as someone who promoted violence against whites. Malcolm X loved black people, but for educators to translate that into a hatred of white people is robbing a generation of an important part of history.[5]
The issue of Malcolm X shirts and Confederate flags was raised again at a community forum held by the school later in the month. According to Hannon, who reported on the forum, parents asked Clemmer if he was planning to change the school’s dress code to prohibit clothing that could be considered offensive to another race. Clemmer responded that he had not made a decision on the issue.
Hannon wrote that most of the parents who spoke at the forum shared the same concern: the safety of their children. One parent, Norman Dunlap, put some of the blame for the school’s issues on the parents, stating, “If we do not instill in our children how we might feel about others who are not of our race, if we talk down about other races to them, they’re going to pick up our habits.”[6]
The issue of parental behaviors was demonstrated at the forum. Hannon reported that the discussions at the forum were calm until a parent with a Confederate flag shirt got up to speak. Hannon described an emotional scene, writing,
One student fought back tears as she questioned why he would wear something that had initially created tension among students. He responded to her and other murmurs by saying he didn’t care whether the Confederate flag offended people. He said it was his southern heritage and he was “daggum” proud of it.[7]
Most students and parents asserted that a lack of sensitivity towards other cultures – such as that demonstrated by the man in the t-shirt – were what led to major tension among students at Carver.[8]
Whether any change in the school environment came from the forum or the sensitivity training was not evident in the articles in our database.
Olivia Haynie
Please cite as:
Haynie, Olivia. “Comparing Malcolm X and Confederate Battle Flags: Carver High School Controversy.” False Image of History: Perspectives on Confederate Commemoration from the Black Press (online). Fall 2024 Edition. Schaefer, Donovan O., ed. URL = https://falseimage.pennds.org/essay/comparing-malcolm-x-and-confederate-battle-flags-carver-high-school-controversy/.
References
Hannon, Karen M. “Confederate Flag-waving Sparks Carver Fight: Students Say They Felt Tensions Rise.” Winston-Salem Chronicle, March 18, 1993.
Hannon, Karen M. “Carver Parents Look for Racial Remedy at Forum.” Winston-Salem Chronicle, March 25, 1993.
Moss, Mark R. “Confederate Flag-waving Sparks Carver Fight: 3 Blacks Arrested; One White Injured.” Winston-Salem Chronicle, March 18, 1993.
Moss, Mark R. “Confederate Flag-waving Sparks Carver Fight: Carver Fight is Symptom of County-wide Tensions.” Winston-Salem Chronicle, March 18, 1993.
Winston-Salem Chronicle. “Informing the Misinformed.” March 18, 1993.
Hannon. “Confederate Flag-waving Sparks Carver Fight: Students Say They Felt Tensions Rise.” Winston-Salem Chronicle. ↩︎
Moss. “Confederate Flag-waving Sparks Carver Fight: 3 Blacks Arrested; One White Injured.” Winston-Salem Chronicle. ↩︎
Moss. “Confederate Flag-waving Sparks Carver Fight: Carver Fight is Symptom of County-wide Tensions.” Winston-Salem Chronicle. ↩︎
Hannon. “Confederate Flag-waving Sparks Carver Fight: Students Say They Felt Tensions Rise.” Winston-Salem Chronicle. ↩︎
Winston-Salem Chronicle. “Informing the Misinformed.” ↩︎
Hannon, “Carver Parents Look for Racial Remedy at Forum.” Winston-Salem Chronicle. ↩︎
Hannon, “Carver Parents Look for Racial Remedy at Forum.” Winston-Salem Chronicle. ↩︎
Hannon, “Carver Parents Look for Racial Remedy at Forum.” Winston-Salem Chronicle. ↩︎