History of the Confederate flag Oct. 10 topic at PCPL

Putnam County Public Library will host a 6:30 p.m. program Tuesday, Oct. 10 on the history of the Confederate flag.

Media attention to recent events in Charlottesville and elsewhere has fueled discussion about statues and banners of the Confederacy and their presence in our communities. But the novelty and tenor of those debates tends to obscure the deep lineages, violence and pervasiveness of Confederate emblems and icons. This program seeks to situate the Confederate flag in its historic context since the Civil War.

Presenters will discuss the deployment and shifting symbolic meanings attached to the flag during the Civil War and Reconstruction, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, mythology and memorialization of “The Lost Cause,” segregation and the Civil Rights movement, and its presence amidst the re-branding of a so-called “alt-right.”

Leading the discussion will be a panel of local experts, including John Dittmer, DePauw University emeritus professor of history. An expert on the civil rights movement in the Deep South, Prof. Dittmer is the author of multiple books and articles including “Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi“ and “The Good Doctors: The Medical Committee for Human Rights and the Struggle for Social Justice in Health Care.” The former volume was awarded the Bancroft Prize, one of the highest honors bestowed by the history profession.

Before arriving at DePauw, Dittmer taught at Brown University, MIT and Tougaloo College in Mississippi.

Joining Professor Dittmer on the panel at PCPL will be Rebecca Alexander, assistant professor of education studies; Robert Dewey, associate professor of history; Emmitt Riley, assistant professor of Africana studies; and Sarah B. Rowley, assistant professor of history.