Flag of inconvenience

Twomey's concern for racial justice sat uneasily with his reverence for Dixie dead

“[That flag] should be folded up and put away.” Father Twomey, on his way to speak against racism, chides schoolgirls over their Confederate caps. Chicago News, August 27, 1956.

After posting the beginning of chapter 1 of my biography-in-progress of Father Louis J. Twomey, S.J., yesterday, I went back and reworked a couple of paragraphs concerning Twomey’s feelings about the Civil War, which were more complex than one might imagine given his promotion of civil rights. The passages have to do specifically with Twomey’s concern for the memory of his ancestors who, he was told, died fighting for the Confederate army. (Whether he did in fact have more than one dead Confederate ancestor is something I’ll take up later in the chapter, as thereby hangs a tale.) Rather than fixing my post, I’ve decided to leave it as is and post the reworked paragraphs here.

But first, some explanation is in order. Part of what I enjoy about being a biographer is investigating the complexities of another person’s ideas and emotions. Despite today’s heightened talk (and experience) of polarity in politics, a human being’s inner world is rarely reducible to a single ideology. I like the challenge of articulating aspects of Father Twomey’s thoughts and feelings that went beyond what he could comfortably express.

One aspect of Twomey’s inner life that has surfaced repeatedly in my research is his struggle to reevaluate the ideas of the South that he received as a white child growing up in the racially segregated city of Tampa, Florida, during the early twentieth century. The August 1956 Chicago News article shown above vividly depicts the clashing cultures that were part of his mental landscape.

In the news story, Father Twomey is on his way to give a talk against racism at the Summer School of Catholic Action in Chicago, when he encounters a group of Southern schoolgirls wearing the Confederate-flag emblem on their caps. He stops to reprimand them, but the language he uses is not what we might expect.

“That’s a sacred symbol of a cause men fought for and lost,” the Jesuit says. “It should be folded up and put away.”

There are so many things to parse out in those two sentences! If one focused on Twomey’s saying “a cause men fought for and lost,” one might think he was upholding the myth of the Confederacy fighting for the “Lost Cause” of states’ rights. But in fact, in the very talk that he was about to give, he would attack the racist notion of states’ rights as it was promoted by Dixiecrats and other white supremacists. So, if we are trying to understand his meaning, the reference to the Lost Cause is a red herring. Twomey is simply taking a phrase that the girls will understand and is applying it in a different way: don’t go waving the flag for a cause that is not only lost, but dead.

The real significance of Twomey’s words is to be found in his reference to the Confederate flag as a “sacred symbol” that should be “folded up and put away.” The Jesuit is drawing upon “The Conquered Banner,” a poem by Father Abram Joseph Ryan, the “Poet Laureate of the Confederacy,” that was required reading for Southern schoolchildren of his time. The poem exhorts the reader to furl the Confederate flag and keep it out of view:

Treat it gently — it is holy —
For it droops above the dead.
Touch it not — unfold it never,
Let it droop there, furled forever,
For its people's hopes are dead!

At the time of his encounter with the Southern schoolgirls, Father Twomey was long past holding any affection for Confederate ideals. Yet he retained his belief that the Confederate flag was a “sacred symbol,” not because of the ideas it stood for, but because his ancestors died under it. For that reason, and that reason alone, it was to be consigned to history along with all the battle flags held by people who, in their ignorance, followed misguided leaders to die for unworthy causes.

I realize that, to the reader unfamiliar with Father Twomey, it may appear that I am trying to defend the indefensible. However I have researched him deeply enough to have a solid idea of where his mind and heart stood on these matters. His knowledge of history was imperfect. In studying his speeches, I find that he gave too much credence to historical distortions of the Reconstruction period—its “humiliating” effect upon the South—that modern scholars have debunked. But, from 1947 until his death in 1969, he was completely given over to making both interior and exterior penance for the sin of racism. His comments about the Confederacy must be read with that personal conversion in mind.

So, here are the paragraphs of chapter 1 that I’ve reworked, which I think explain the nuances of Twomey’s beliefs better than what I had before:

The years of spiritual training Twomey received in the Society of Jesus helped him learn to moderate his emotions. But the legend of his ancestors’ valor remained imprinted upon his psyche. Long after he moved to New Orleans and dedicated himself to undoing the South’s legacy of racial discrimination, when he saw someone reduce the Confederacy or its flag to a mere propaganda point—whether their aim was to boost Southerners or to mock them—he would respond with uncharacteristic aggression. The sacrifices of Confederate soldiers were inviolably sacred to him, and he fought back against anyone who would manipulate them for worldly ends.

Twomey’s liberal-minded friends knew that the Confederacy was a taboo topic for him. In 1964, one such friend, Jim Sweeney—a New York-born Tulane University professor who was not above the occasional practical joke—encouraged his school-age son Tim to wear his Union Army costume at a party Father Twomey attended at his New Orleans home. The normally restrained Jesuit became visibly riled up, to the amusement of Jim and other partygoers.

Thanks, as always for your prayers and support as I continue to work on chapter 1.