CRAIG BENZINE: Here we are at the American Civil War Museum in Richmond, Virginia.

It also just happens to sit next to the former home of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America.

MATT WEBER: This museum is home to the world's largest collection of flags used by the Confederacy during the Civil War.

CRAIG BENZINE: There's one flag design in particular that stands out from the rest.

There's no denying that this flag holds a tremendous amount of meaning to this day as a symbol of Southern heritage, rebellion, or hate.

But how did all of this happen?

Where did this flag actually come from?

And why is it so controversial?

[music playing] On the morning of June 27, 2015, Bree Newsome, an artist and activist, scaled a flagpole in front of the South Carolina State House and removed the flag on top of it.

That flag was what we have come to know as the Confederate flag.

MATT WEBER: Before Bree Newsome took it down, the Confederate flag had been flying in front of the South Carolina State House for more than 50 years.

But this flag's history goes back much farther than that.

And its origins aren't as clear cut as they might seem.

Today, there's this idea that there is something, there was something, called the Confederate flag.

When in reality, during the life of the Confederacy, no such thing.

MATT WEBER: This is John Coski, historian at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia, and author of the book "The Confederate Battle Flag-- America's Most Embattled Emblem."

What there were were a succession of national flags, that is, flags that were the equivalent of our Stars and Stripes, and a whole host of other flags used as battle flags.

CRAIG BENZINE: One of the main reasons the American Civil War first started was because a number of Southern states seceded from the Union.

They formed their own government.

And they called themselves the Confederate States of America.

And the first thing you do when you make a new nation is make a flag-- or one of the first things.

I mean, that's the first thing I would do.

I would probably go to bed.

The Confederacy went through several flags.

But these early designs retained a resemblance to the Union's Stars and Stripes flag, which made it a bit confusing on the battlefield.

MATT WEBER: In an attempt to differentiate their flag, the Confederacy adopted a white flag with a blue cross on a red background in the corner.

But the flag was mostly just plain white.

Which became a problem, because it looked like a flag of surrender.

CRAIG BENZINE: They fixed that problem by later adding a red stripe on the side.

MATT WEBER: On top of that, there were a ton of different battle flags.

And that's where you get this wild variety of flags.

But one of them that emerged from all of that was the one that we know today, the blue X on the red field.

CRAIG BENZINE: The Army of Northern Virginia, later led by Robert E. Lee, was the first military unit to adopt the Southern Cross design into their battle flag.

JOHN COSKI: And as Lee became by far the most successful commander, and that became by far the most successful army, that flag became enormously important to the Confederacy.

In a sense, it was the flag of the army that was keeping the Confederacy alive and giving it some hope of winning the war.

MATT WEBER: So the Southern Cross design was originally a battle flag that became really popular.

And that's about it.

If Robert E. Lee hadn't been such a good general, the flag may have been just one of a dozen other battle flags lost to history.

And while slavery itself is inherently racist, at the time, the flag was more of a way for the Confederate States to distinguish themselves from the United States.

It wasn't really about race.

Well, not directly, anyways.

The fact was that for African Americans, if the Confederacy won, it's going to be a continuation of the status quo of slavery.

If the Union won, then there's a very good likelihood slavery will be ended.

So from the African American perspective, any flag of the Confederacy stood for the perpetuation of slavery.

As you're probably aware, the Confederacy lost the Civil War.

And when the war was over, the Confederacy dissolved.

And all their national flags and battle flags were rolled up and put away.

For a time, it seemed the flag would stay tucked away, remaining a relic of history.

If the flag had never been unfurled, this would be a really short discussion.

But obviously, it was unfurled again.

MATT WEBER: The Confederate flag, specifically the Southern Cross battle flag, began to make a reappearance in the late 1800s.

CRAIG BENZINE: Memorial organizations began putting on parades and ceremonies to remember and honor the soldiers who died during the Civil War.

JOHN COSKI: And that's really, with some exceptions, the only way that flag was used.

So it was widespread but very limited in its use.

And then as that movement grew in the 1880s and 1890s, so did the use of Confederate flags.

As it started to appear in other parts of society, and more and more people began appropriating the flag, its meaning began to change, as well.

Think of it as originally, it was a Confederate battle flag.

Then eventually, that grew into standing and meaning the Confederacy generally.

And by 1900 or so, it expanded a little bit further to be the South, became a regional symbol, white Southern, specifically, but Southern.

He flag began showing up in universities and fraternities.

MATT WEBER: And when Southern men were drafted into the army, they brought the flag with them as a memento of where they came from.

The headline writers around the nation dubbed it the flag fad.

And there was a little bit of discussion about, is it some way ideological?

Is it racist?

Is it politicized?

Or is it just a fad.

The typical conclusion was it was just a fad, like coonskin caps, and hula hoops, and other youth fads of the era.

But the reemergence of the Confederate battle flag proved to be more than just a fad.

MATT WEBER: At the 1948 Democratic Convention, the Democratic party declared that it would pursue civil rights and end segregation in the South.

This caused many of the Southern Democrats to break away from the party in protest.

CRAIG BENZINE: They became known as the Dixiecrats.

And their followers used the Confederate flag, the Southern Cross, as a symbol of their opposition to civil rights.

JOHN COSKI: These images of Dixiecrat rebellion against civil rights created this image of the battle flag, once again, being a rallying cry for the South fighting against the federal government's effort to change its way of life, in this case segregation, as opposed to slavery 80 years before.

But the flag's association as a symbol of hate wasn't solidified until it was adopted by the Ku Klux Klan.

In 1946, Life magazine did a photo essay on the Klan.

And in those photos, they're seen using the Confederate battle flags in their rituals and ceremonies.

JOHN COSKI: The Klan used that flag a lot.

And their use of it in conjunction with Klan violence helped to establish its primary connotation for many people today as a symbol of hate.

ROBERT WATSON: Growing up in Mississippi, as I did in the 1950s, whenever I saw the Confederate flag, as now, I was always concerned about my welfare and the welfare of people who looked like me, and sometimes, people who did not look like me, but who thought like me.

CRAIG BENZINE: This is Robert Watson, a history professor at Hampton University, published author, and an expert on African American history.

And that flag was symbolic of a people who were intent on everything being right by what they thought were right.

And it's ordinary white Southerners, not just Klansmen that we can dismiss as extremists.

It was ordinary white Southerners who, for whatever reason, believed that this flag spoke to their commitment to segregation and their opposition to integration.

Complicating this even further, while the Confederate flag was being used by Southerners in opposition to civil rights, it was also exploding into popular culture.

JOHN COSKI: There was a real civil war fad in the '50s and '60s, yes, at the same time as the fight against integration.

They're mixed in there somehow.

Beginning in the '50s and continuing on into the '60s and '70s, the flag started showing up everywhere.

CRAIG BENZINE: T-shirts, bumper stickers, Lynyrd Skynyrd concerts, and even the TV.

MATT WEBER: In the pop culture arena, the flag took on the connotation of rebellion.

And anybody who wanted to assert their individuality or considered themselves a rebel might wear the Confederate flag.

It even showed up overseas in Europe, where it was basically seen as an American symbol, no different than a cowboy hat or McDonald's.

Today, we're in a situation where people-- and this has been true for 40 years or so-- were people have radically different views of what the flag means, and therefore what should be done with the flag.

People who fly the Confederate flags in their neighborhoods, on the back of trucks, that's their business, because this is America.

And that's fine for them, but I think it sends a bad message to people who are trying to work together across the color and race line.

But if people want to go see it in a museum, then that's fine.

But that's where I think it should be.

So back to the question, should they be on state symbols?

A lot of fair-minded people say no.

A symbol for a state or a civil division of whatever size should be one that is acceptable to the vast majority of its citizens.

That flag is not.

In the wake of the racially motivated Charleston church massacre in June of 2015, where the shooter is seen in photographs with the Confederate flag, many Southern states began to distance themselves from the flag.

The governor of Alabama ordered the Confederate flag removed from a state monument.

And several states halted the manufacture of Confederate flag license plates.

Although many Southern state flags were inspired by the Confederate flag, Mississippi is the only state that still has the Southern Cross in its design.

JOHN COSKI: The people who want it, who believe that it means heritage, are the ones who should be in favor of restricting its use.

If you really believe that it is a flag of history and heritage, you should be leading the charge to make sure that it is only used in context of unambiguous history and heritage.

Just a few weeks after Bree Newsome was arrested for taking down the Confederate flag, the South Carolina state government itself voted to remove the flag permanently from its grounds.

While the Confederate flag might be disappearing as a state symbol, it still remains alive in the culture of the South and the United States.

And its presence and the debate that surrounds it won't be going away anytime soon.

So what do you think?

Does the Confederate flag have a place in this day and age?

And can its meaning ever be separated from racism and hate?

Let us know in the comments.

But be civil.

Not like the Civil War.

No, no, no, not at all.

This episode was brought to you by PBS Learning Media, a great source for classroom resources on Civil War history.

If you're interested in finding more videos and lesson plans on what we talked about today, you can find our page on Learning Media.

And for a more dramatic take on the Civil War, check out the new series "Mercy Street" on PBS.

A lot of what we explored in this episode gets talked about on that show, too.

So head over to pbs.org to find out more.

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