Ask former Gov. Roy Barnes if monkeying with the Confederate emblem and Georgia state flag enhances political careers.
Barnes, a Democrat who had served in the Georgia House and Senate, won the governor's race in 1998. A large African American turnout helped push him over the top.
The African American surge emboldened black legislators who pressured Barnes to get the Confederate stars and bars off the official state flag. Barnes liked the idea and went about twisting arms and cutting deals until he got a new flag.
In 1956, state lawmakers added the stars and bars to the flag. That was their way of thumbing their noses at the 1954 Brown versus the Board of Education decision, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that made segregation illegal in public schools.
Not only did a large number of Georgians detest removing the stars and bars from the flag, they also opposed the new flag's color. Instead of being red, white and blue flag, it was blue with a yellow emblem in the middle.
The change prompted an anti-new flag movement called flaggers. The flaggers began posting "Boot Barnes" signs around the state. There were heavy concentrations of the signs in rural areas. Voters booted Barnes in the 2002 election, choosing the first Republican governor since Reconstruction instead.
The new governor, Sonny Perdue, led efforts to oust the Barnes flag as well, replacing it with a new red, white and blue version minus the stars and bars.
Sixteen years later, Stacey Abrams, an African American woman, is the Democratic nominee for Georgia governor. She meets Republican Brian Kemp in the Nov. 6 general election.
On the campaign trail, they've underscored their positions on issues ranging from Medicaid expansion and immigration to voter suppression and civil rights. They've run political attack ads against each other, and they've had one of the two debates that are scheduled before the election.
Earlier this week, however, the New York Times reported that Abrams participated in the burning of a Georgia state flag in 1992. The burning took place on the steps of the Georgia Capitol, a place where Abrams recently served as minority leader of the House of Representatives until she resigned to run for governor.
In a statement released to a news outlet, the Abrams camp said that while she was a student at Spelman College in Atlanta, she took part in peaceful protest against the flag with Confederate emblems.
"During Stacey Abrams' college years, Georgia was at a crossroads, struggling with how to overcome racially divisive issues, including symbols of the Confederacy, the sharpest of which was the inclusion of the Confederate emblem in the Georgia state flag," the statement read. "This conversation was sweeping across Georgia as numerous organizations, prominent leaders, and students engaged in the ultimately successful effort to change the flag."
That was 11 years before the current Georgia flag - the one without the Confederate emblems - was approved.
Since the overwhelming majority of African Americans wanted Confederate emblems off the Georgia flag, it's unlikely that her participation in a 1992 flag burning protest will hurt her chances in the gubernatorial race.
On the other hand, it could improve her chances of attracting liberal and moderate white voters who didn't like Confederate emblems on their flag.
Sixteen years after voters booted Barnes for monkeying with the state flag, we'll learn if they're mad at Abrams 26 years after she helped burn a flag with the emblems on it.
