Confederate Battle Flag: What It Is And What It Isn't
(CNN)The racist massacre in a South Carolina church has tipped the balance in a decades-old tug of war over the meaning of the Confederate battle flag.
Its champions have argued it's a symbol of Southern culture, the historic flag of the South.
Critics say it's a racist symbol that represents a war to uphold slavery and, later, a battle to oppose civil rights advances.
We take a look at the flags of the Confederacy to sort out the facts.
It's not the original Confederate flag
The Confederate states went through three official flags during the four-year Civil War, but none of them was the battle flag that's at the center of the current controversy.
The first was the "Stars and Bars," approved in 1861.
Like its Union sibling, it had a dark blue field in the upper left corner -- or the canton -- and only three stripes, two red and one white. It had seven stars to represent the breakaway states: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. And the white stars formed a circle, much like the original Betsy Ross American flag.
More: www.cnn.com
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