A nice weekend in rural Chester County is a Confederate Flag day. But at Bryn Mawr College?

They claim southern pride but they know exactly what it means. 

It’s still not safe for a black woman or black man to travel through rural Chester County alone. It hasn't changed that much in one hundred years. 

You would think Bryn Mawr College would be a little different than rural Chester County.

They have programs like this:

Dissent, Violence, Justice at Bryn Mawr College 

This academic year Bryn Mawr will invite artists, journalists, scholars, and experts to campus to explore the reasons behind, and the realities of dissent, violence and justice. Join students, faculty, and staff as they investigate the impact of these themes on our local and global communities.

But:

Bryn Mawr campus roiled by Confederate flag, Mason-Dixon line in dormitory 

By Bobby Zipp on September 25, 2014 

"Over the course of the past ten days, an incident involving two Bryn Mawr college students has developed into a multi-day campuswide movement against racial discrimination. The series of events began when the two Bryn Mawr students in question flew the Confederate “stars and bars” flag in Radnor Hall, a dormitory at the college sometime before September 15. In addition to flying the flag in a public space on the hall, the two students drew a line on the floor of the hallway that was intended to represent the Mason-Dixon line. 

The flag, which served as a national symbol of the slaveholding South during the civil war, maintains a strong anti-Black connotation for many. The Mason-Dixon line is considered to demarcate the cultural boundary between the American north and south.

According to Michelle Lee ’15, a student at Bryn Mawr and a resident of Radnor Hall, two girls posted a confederate flag in a shared dormitory space during the middle of the week of September 7th. When other students in the dormitory asked the girls to remove the flag, they refused, arguing the flag was a token of their Southern pride and was not offensive or racist. After the dorm president asked the girls for the flag to be taken down, they created with tape a line on their floor meant to represent the Mason-Dixon line. Following a second request from the hall’s dorm team for the flag to be removed, the girls placed it inside their room, where it was clearly visible from outside their window. Following the event, there was a rapid response from the student body."

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The Phoenix Since 1881

The independent campus newspaper of Swarthmore College

Bryn Mawr campus roiled by Confederate flag, Mason-Dixon line in dormitory

By Bobby Zipp on September 25, 2014