The “Mary” flag was conceived prior to the pandemic, in 2019 as a way to help unify and encourage the Lowcountry Progressive Community, which occupies one of two “Blue Islands” in the red state of South Carolina. Charleston County remains blue with a solid blue majority voting in its county elections. Nancy Mace had to have 30 thousand voters gerrymandered out of her district to hold on to her office. Without that State Legislature provided boost, the Charleston area would be represented by two Democratic Congresspersons, as it was from 2018 to 2020.
The Mary flag deliberately echos both the US Flag and the Confederate First National Flag (The Stars and Bars, not the X battle flag.) It consists of red and white stripes on the fly and a blue canton (where the stars go on a US flag). The blue canton echos the SC State Palmetto flag.
The five stripes each list one of the important issues we need to resolve to improve life in the SC Low country. transit equity, affordable housing, sustainable climate, $15 an hour minimum wage and Equality and Freedom from Violence. Obviously there are other major areas in which the Lowcountry fails its citizens such as education, healthcare and child welfare but we didn't try to list everything on the flag.
The Canton shows a solidarity salute. This is a union and progressive salute of working class solidarity. It is a peaceful gesture and is distinguished from a raised fist in that the palm of the fist faces the viewer. Most people in SC, where Unions have been suppressed as part of the economic and social heritage of slavery and the plantation, don't understand the meaning of this salute. Due to this, we plan to substitute a white rose for the solidarity salute in the next version of the flag. The white rose was the symbol of a group of young German students who struggled to undermine Hitler in the last years of WWII. It has become a symbol of the struggle against fascism.
The young members of the White Rose were hunted down, tortured and slaughtered by the Gestapo in 1943. Read about the White Rose on Wikipedia.
The most remarkable aspect of the flag is the fairy seated on the crescent moon. This honors the late Mary Smith, a remarkable local activist who died in September 2019. Mary appeared as Sylphide, the Spirit of Motion at activist events from 2017 to early 2018. A Sylphide is a young fairy-like mythological figure briefly popular in French culture in the 1800s. Mary’s last appearance as Sylphide was at our ConChaCo event in May 2018.
Mary suffered from a number of autoimmune illnesses which caused her tremendous pain. She gave up her wings after ConChaCo because her body, “felt like it was burning inside.” She struggled the last few years of her life, giving up her dream of becoming a social justice paralegal even though she earned high grades at Trident Tech in her classes. She switched to welding, hoping to find a fast track to a secure income, but had to abandon that as well due to increasing illness and pain. Mary was a kind, courageous activist. She is one of seven core members of Lowcountry Up is Good lost to death since our victory in the Half Penny sales tax referendum in 2016. Each of those deaths is directly linked to one or more of the issues listed on the flag.
In Mary's case, every issue on the flag was a challenge for her and our community's refusal to address them helped cause her death.
Mary struggled with CARTA and inadequate transit which made it almost impossible for her to get to medical appointments, work and her classes at Trident Tech. She once worked an entire shift with her pants soaked with water which surged up through the floor of the #10 Rivers Ave. bus. She was a small woman and suffered greatly in the cold and wet at unsheltered bus stops.
Mary struggled to find and keep affordable housing. She was priced out of several apartments by rising rents. She was eventually forced to live with her mother in a remote part of Dorchester County, far from the nearest bus stop.
Mary was sensitive to toxins in the environment and couldn't take adequate care of herself if there was a climate change connected natural disaster like a hurricane, which destroyed her careful planning. Hurricane evacuations were a huge challenge for her.
Mary was a hard worker, earning most of her income in the local Food and Beverage industry as a waitress and server. This irregular, underpaid work compelled her to choose between rent and medication many times. She was humiliated when she was forced to ask others for assistance.
Mary was a small person. Though she had some martial arts training and was vigilant, she knew she was vulnerable to violence, particularly if she ended up stranded at night somewhere waiting on a bus or ride. Her complex life and delicate planning was easily disrupted, leaving her vulnerable to assault.
Mary was a kind and forgiving person. She helped feed the hungry, obtain help for the homeless and get clothing to people who had nothing but rags. Despite her own struggles, she did everything possible to personify the Motto of Best Friends of Low-country Transit, “Together, We Go Forward!” While people laughed out our plans to have a Transit Fairy, no one laughed after they met her working for a better Charleston in costume. Here is a video of her challenging Mike Seekings, the Chairman of CARTA for holding their board meetings at a time when working people could not attend.
When we were designing the flag in September 2019, we needed an image of a crescent moon to go in the Canton. As we looked through available images on the Internet, we came across an image of a moon with a fairy seated on it. Though Mary had given up her wings over a year earlier, she had indicated she hoped to get her wings soon. We did not understand what Mary was saying at the time.
We put the Moon with a fairy on it on the flag and sent her an image on the design via Facebook. She messaged back that she loved it. Two days later, Mary got her wings back when she died.
Mary's (image, left) death followed that of Moya (Image, left), the beloved leader of Black Lives Matter Charleston who was shot and died in New Orleans. Moya was the best sidewalk outreach worker we’ve ever had. The death of Kathy followed two days later, our wonderful activist from Sangaree, who died in horrific pain due to problems with healthcare and transportation. We lost my wife Julia Hamilton, in June 2020 due to workplace safety issues which led to a heart condition, all a direct result of a lack of Union representation. Dave died on the street in Pennsylvania, while struggling with homelessness and transgender issues. Michael Wiffly, working to build tiny house villages, was run down in Mount Pleasant while riding his bicycle home from July 4th. Fireworks to the campground he was staying in on the Fourth of July. Just this February we lost Hazel Blondell Smith, who fought for racial justice and transit in Summerville for over 50 years. She died struggling with being prosecuted for feeding a stray dog, which Dorchester County decided to criminalize by charging her with harboring a dangerous animal, part of a larger effort to drive African Americans out of Summerville.
These were all brave, determined people who chose to fight for social and economic justice in a red state where the corrupt values of the plantation persist. Every one of them was told to leave South Carolina, over and over. Five of them are buried here and will remain here until the rising ocean covers their graves. Dave died near his birthplace in Pennsylvania, but the welfare of people in SC never left his mind.
Most social justice activism in SC is performative, a way for the participants to show they are different from the cruel, ignorant people they struggle against. The cost of pushing activism beyond that to something which actually forces the system to yield progress is very high. It usually involves sacrifices like being fired from employment for your beliefs (Louise Brown, still fighting and active after 80 years of activism), being assaulted (William Hamilton, attacked on a CARTA bus), humiliating insults from public officials, harassment and being alienated from your family.
While Lowcountry Up is Good and Best Friends of Low country Transit has lost six wonderful people to death since delivering the margin of victory needed to hopefully, someday build the Lowcountry Rapid Transit system (now delayed again to 2029), we have lost far more of our precious young talent to exile. Brilliant young activists have cut their teeth on our hard work and now fight for a better world elsewhere. As one told us before leaving, “I appreciate your fight for Transit, Affordable Housing and a living wage and I am proud to have helped, but I'm moving to Denver so I can have those things next week.
Most of the people we have left, mostly older, plan to fight here to the end when they will join their friends in the ground of this backward and cruel state. They are tough people, full of mercy and love. They're the best at what they do, person for person of any social justice organization in this hemisphere. We work with activists from Oakland California, Chicago and New York all the time. We help train them. Our friends elsewhere know we're determined and unwilling to surrender. So do we.
We are met with a battle for the future of our community, our state, our nation and our world against a cabal of billionaires attempting to find out what the limits are on what they can buy.
SC is a tough place to make a stand. The cavalry is not coming from elsewhere. As Gandhi said, “We have to be the change we want to see in the world.” Trump's assault on the Republic means no money or people from elsewhere is coming to save us. The problem is everywhere. They're struggling in the big, blue cities too.
We have learned who we are. We're proud of our flag. We have loved and are the people who have carried it. We have one version of it large enough to cover a casket, though we haven't done that yet. A new version will substitute a white rose for the solidarity salute and change “$15 and hour” to “Pay a Living Wage.” Wages have risen in Charleston, but rent rises faster. Whatever we change, Mary stays on the moon.
We know Mary has her wings. We know she's watching over us.
Together, We Go Forward!
