"I was two months out of college when I bought my Confederate battle flag from a small store in a major Southern city.

"I saw in that flag then what I would like to see today: a gentle reminder of a more casual and friendly way of life, where the sweet scent of gardenias and sweet taste of iced tea never fail to lift our spirits.

"However, it didn't take me long that morning in 1980 to realize I was in way over my head in my naive attempt to trumpet my Southern heritage. As I left the shop, a man only slightly older than me slid from behind the counter and (gave me a flier) for a KKK splinter group. The perceived connection was obvious. Because I wanted a Confederate flag, I was surely a racist. ...

"It is easy, too easy, for many of us to dismiss (the NAACP and SCLC boycott requests) this as misplaced passion. Why focus on a few pieces of brightly colored fabric when so much of black America still desperately needs better schools, better housing, better health care, better jobs? ...

"Part of a free society is accepting that everyone else is just as free to express themselves. Thus can some citizens burn the same flag that other citizens died for while defending it from enemy attack. Thus did the NCAA do the right thing in refusing to cave in to the NAACP and SCLC on this particular issue.

"That said, a little sensitivity and understanding is in order. That which divides never strengthens, and Blacks remain our only citizens who, as a group, did not initially enter this nation of their own free will.

"If we could end their slavery 135 year ago, perhaps it is not too much to ask that, at the dawn of the 21st century, all federal, state and local government buildings remove any reminders of that slavery."

Terence Moore, columnist
Atlanta Journal and Constitution

"We're stuck with this mess at least for the next few months. Those of the Georgia legislature can't change the state flag until their session early next year. Well, if they want to change it. That's why we need the NCAA, the NFL and others to turn Georgia into another South Carolina. ...

"In reference to Georgia's flag controversy, the NCAA announced that it likely wouldn't follow the request of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to remove the (Division I men's and women's basketball championship games) from the Georgia Dome.

"What a shame. The NCAA didn't sense enough outrage over the matter in Georgia. We all need to change that, and we all need to do so, right up to the time that supporters of the Confederate flag realize that Robert E. Lee is dead."