California Legislature—2015–16 Regular Session

Assembly Joint Resolution No. 26

Introduced by Assembly Member Weber

(Principal coauthors: Senators Hall and Mitchell)

(Coauthors: Assembly Members Alejo, Brown, Burke, Cooper, Eggman, Cristina Garcia, Gipson, Gonzalez, Holden, Jones-Sawyer, McCarty, Ridley-Thomas, and Thurmond)

(Coauthor: Senator Glazer)

June 30, 2015

Assembly Joint Resolution No. 26—Relative to the Confederate flag and symbols.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

AJR 26, as introduced, Weber. Removal of the Confederate flag and symbols.

This measure would, among other things, memorialize the President and Congress of the United States to ban the sale or display of the Confederate flag on public property and to ban the use of Confederate States of America symbolism from state symbols, and would encourage the donation of Confederate artifacts to museums.

Fiscal committee: no.

WHEREAS, According to the 1860 United States Census, the
United States population was 31,443,321. The total number of
slaves in the Lower South was 2,312,352 comprising 47 percent
of total population and the total number of slaves in the Upper
South was 1,208,758 comprising 29 percent of total population;
and

WHEREAS, South Carolina had a clear Black majority from
about 1,708 through most of the 18th century. By 1720, there were
approximately 18,000 people living in South Carolina and 65
percent of those were African American slaves. South Carolina’s
slave population grew to match the success of its rice culture.
Whereas in 1790, there were slightly more Whites than Blacks,
with 140,178 White and 108,896 Black, living in South Carolina.
By 1860 the black population had grown, with 291,300 White and
412,320 Black, to more than double of the white population; and

WHEREAS, The Southern United States, including the States
of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi,
North Carolina, Texas, West Virginia, Virginia, and South Carolina
seceded from the greater union in 1860 to join the Confederate
States of America under President Jefferson Davis and General
Robert E. Lee; and

WHEREAS, The symbolism of the Confederate flag when the
states seceded in 1860 represented, in its personification, secession
and treason; and

WHEREAS, The first official national flag of the Confederacy,
often called the Stars and Bars, was flown from March 4, 1861,
to May 1, 1863, inclusive. The Stars and Bars flag was adopted
March 4, 1861, in the first temporary national capital of
Montgomery, Alabama, and was raised over the dome of that first
Confederate Capitol; and

WHEREAS, At the First Battle of Manassas, the first battle of
the Civil War, the similarity between the Stars and Bars and the
Stars and Stripes caused confusion and military problems.
Regiments carried flags to help commanders observe and assess
battles in the warfare of the era. At a distance, the two national
flags were hard to tell apart. In addition, Confederate regiments
carried many other flags, which added to the possibility of
confusion; and

WHEREAS, After the battle, General Pierre Gustave Toutant
Beauregard, a prominent general of the Confederate States Army
during the American Civil War, wrote that he was resolved then
to have the Confederate flag changed if possible, or to adopt for
his command a “battle flag,” the Stars and Bars, that would be
entirely different from any state or federal flag. His aide William
Porcher Miles, the former chair of the Committee on the Flag and
Seal, described his rejected national flag design to Beauregard.
Miles also told the Committee on the Flag and Seal about the
general’s complaints and request for the national flag to be
changed. The committee rejected this idea by a four to one vote,
after which Beauregard proposed the idea of having two flags. He
described the idea in a letter to his commander General Joseph E.
Johnston: “How would it do us to address the War Department on
the subject of Regimental or badge flags made of red with two
blue bars crossing each other diagonally on which shall be
introduced the stars, ... We would then on the field of battle know
our friends from our enemies”; and

WHEREAS, Although the soldiers of the Confederacy were
never tried by the United States government after the Civil War,
Jefferson Davis and General Robert E. Lee were indicted and later
acquitted of all charges by President Andrew Jackson as he left
office in 1869; and

WHEREAS, After the Civil War ended, groups such as the Ku
Klux Klan were formed to promote White supremacy and racial
hatred. The Ku Klux Klan, perhaps the most infamous, was one
of the first groups to continue using the Confederate flag after the
war. The Ku Klux Klan rallied others still vexed after the war to
instill fear and spout hate against freed African Americans; and

WHEREAS, The flag was later resurrected in the 1950s to rally
resistance to the Civil Rights movement and support the South’s
desire to maintain segregation and further the policies of Jim Crow;
and

WHEREAS, In South Carolina, the Confederate flag was moved
to the top of their State Capitol building in 1962, after President
John F. Kennedy called on the Congress of the United States to
end poll taxes and literacy tests for voting, and the United States
Supreme Court struck down segregation in public transportation;
and

WHEREAS, According to the Southern Poverty Law Center,
there are 788 “hate groups” in the United States. Of these, 57 are
located in the State of California, which is the highest of any state.
There are a total of 283 of these hate groups in the former
Confederate states. Nineteen of these hate groups reside in South
Carolina. Of these 19 hate groups, 16 use the Confederate flag as
one of their symbols. These hate groups include the Ku Klux Klan,
Neo-Nazis, and Neo-Confederates; and

WHEREAS, Whereas, African Americans make up 15.6 percent
of the population of the United States or 45 million people, in
2013, they were victims of 32.7 percent, or 14,715,000, of all hate
crimes in the United States, which is the highest number of any
group in America; and

WHEREAS, On June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof went to Emanuel
AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and opened fire during
a Wednesday bible study, killing nine of the church’s attendees;
and

WHEREAS, Over the last five years, friends of Dylann Roof
had seen him become increasingly aligned with White Supremacist
ideologies. They observed his behavior becoming more fanatical
than that of the most notorious hate groups in his native South
Carolina. Dylann Roof believed that it was up to him to do the
work that other hate groups were failing to do. Dylann Roof
believed that African Americans were “stupid and violent” people
and viewed Hispanics and Latinos as the “enemy”; and

WHEREAS, Dylann Roof has been photographed on various
occasions with the same Confederate flag that many of these hate
groups proudly display; and

WHEREAS, Sixty-nine percent of those surveyed by Public
Policy Polling believe that the shooting attack at Emanuel AME
Church in Charleston, South Carolina, was a hate crime and 34
percent surveyed believe it was a form of terrorism; and

WHEREAS, Since the end of the Civil War, private and official
use of the Confederacy’s flags, and of flags with derivative designs,
has continued and generated philosophical, political, cultural, and
racial controversy in the United States. These include flags
displayed in states, cities, towns, counties, schools, colleges,
universities, private organizations, associations, and by individuals;
and

WHEREAS, In some American states the Confederate flag is
given the same protection from burning and desecration as the
United States flag. It is protected from being publicly mutilated,
defiled, or otherwise cast in contempt by the laws of five states:
Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina.
However, laws banning the desecration of any flag, even if
technically remaining in effect, were ruled unconstitutional in 1989
by the United States Supreme Court in Texas v. Johnson and are
not enforceable; and

WHEREAS, In 2000, South Carolina passed a bill to remove
the Confederate flag from the top of the state house dome. It had
been placed there since the early 1960s by an all-White South
Carolina Legislature to mark the 100th anniversary of the Civil
War. The flag was moved to the north end of the state house as
part of a compromise. However, to this day, there have been
protests to have the flag removed from there as well; and

WHEREAS, To many groups, especially African Americans,
the Confederate flag is a symbol of hate, racism, exclusion,
oppression, and violence. Its symbolism and history is directly
linked to the enslavement, torture, and murder of millions of
African Americans; and

WHEREAS, Today, as in the past, public display of the
Confederate flag is believed to instill fear, intimidation and a direct
threat of violence towards others, though a minute number of
groups disagree, claiming that the Confederate flag commemorates
Southern heritage; and

WHEREAS, In 2014, the State of California, through the
enactment of Assembly Bill 2444, became the first state to ban the
state sale and display of the Confederate flag. The State of
California may not sell or display the Battle Flag of the
Confederacy, also referred to as the Stars and Bars, or any similar
image, or tangible personal property inscribed with that image
unless the image appears in a book, digital medium, or state
museum that serves an educational or historical purpose; and

WHEREAS, On June 22nd, 2015, Governor Nikki Haley of
South Carolina called upon her state to remove the Confederate
flag from the capitol grounds in the wake of the Emanuel AME
Church shooting; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Assembly and the Senate of the State of
California, jointly, That the Legislature of California encourages
the United States Congress to enact a ban on the sale and display
of the Confederate flag at all state capitols and federal, state, and
local government-owned property and buildings; and be it further

Resolved, That the Legislature encourages the United States
Congress to identify the states and their state flags that have the
Confederate symbol embedded into their state’s flag and are using
the flag. Moreover, the Legislature encourages Congress to prohibit
these states from selling or displaying the Confederate flag at all
state capitols and other federal, state, and local government owned
properties and items, including drivers licenses, license plates, and
public buildings; and be it further

Resolved, That the Legislature encourages the United States
Congress to enact a ban on the use of the former Confederate States
of America symbolism and seals from all state symbols; and be it
further

Resolved, That the Legislature encourages the United States
Congress to encourage businesses located in the states that have
the Confederate symbols in their state flag to take them down; and
be it further

Resolved, That the Legislature encourages the donation of any
effects representing the former Confederate States of America to
local, state, and national museums; and be it further

Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies
of this resolution to the President and Vice President of the United
States, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to the
Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, to the Majority
Leader of the Senate, to the Minority Leader of the Senate, to each
Senator and Representative from California, and to the governors
of the southern states including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida,
Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Texas, West
Virginia, Virginia, and South Carolina.