Sonya Clark

Book excerpt: In the spring of 1865, a seemingly unremarkable dishcloth played a crucial role in ending the Civil War as the South's flag of surrender at Appomattox. A Confederate horseman carried a humble white linen towel into the lines of General George Custer, near the courthouse at Appomattox. The horseman was sent on behalf of General Robert E. Lee, who was requesting a suspension of hostilities while General Ulysses S. Grant proposed terms of surrender. Focusing on this Confederate Flag of Truce, Clark explores the legacy of symbols and challenges the power of propaganda, erasures, and omissions. By making the Truce Flag - a cloth that brokered peace and represented the promise of reconciliation - into a monumental alternative to the infamous Confederate Battle Flag and its pervasive divisiveness, Clark instigates a role reversal and aims to correct a historical imbalance. Monumental Cloth, The Flag We Should Know is published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, on view from March to August 2019. The works of art presented here are a timely catalyst for dialogue about the scars of the Confederacy and America's ability to acknowledge and reckon with racial injustice.