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Historian John Coski on the Confederate Battle Flag

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In early April, the Sons of Confederate Veterans announced plans for a park to be built on private land just off of Exit 16 on I-24 in McCracken County.  It's intended as a memorial to the area's Confederate soldiers.  And at the center of the park, and an emerging controversy, is a flagpole, upon which will fly the red field, blue cross, and thirteen white stars of the Confederate battle flag.  The flag has been a lightning rod for controversy for years; the SCV insists it’s a symbol of heritage while opponents see it as an emblem of racism symbol.  For some perspective, Todd Hatton speaks with John Coski, a vexillologist (a specialist who studies flags) and historian at The Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia.  He’s also the author of The Confederate Battle Flag: America's Embattled Emblem, which details the flag’s history and how it came to represent different things to different people.

Todd Hatton hails from Paducah, Kentucky, where he got into radio under the auspices of the late, great John Stewart of WKYX while a student at Paducah Community College. He also worked at WKMS in the reel-to-reel tape days of the early 1990s before running off first to San Francisco, then Orlando in search of something to do when he grew up. He received his MFA in Creative Writing at Murray State University. He vigorously resists adulthood and watches his wife, Angela Hatton, save the world one plastic bottle at a time.
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