After race, the biggest single determiner of opinion on the flag was education, with higher degrees of it correlating to less support.
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The poll found that 57 percent of Americans see the Confederate flag more as a symbol of Southern pride, while 33 percent see it more as a symbol of racism.
Among white respondents, 66 percent picked Southern pride, versus 17 percent of blacks.
There have been several efforts also to remove the flag or other references to the Confederacy in the days following the deaths of nine churchgoers at Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, but the public is also mixed on how far that effort should go.
When asked if the shootings “should be considered a hate crime”, 87 percent of all Americans said yes, with 92 percent of blacks and 86 percent of whites concurring.
Among whites, there’s a sharp divide by education, and those with more formal education are less apt to see the flag as a symbol of pride.
Fifty-five percent of Americans said the flags should be removed from government property, while 43 percent said the flags should stay put.
Among African-Americans, 72% see the Confederate flag as a symbol of racism, just 25% of whites agree.
The drive to disappear the Confederate battle flag has more to do with the need to hit political opponents over the head by portraying those who don’t think as they do as racist than anything else.
“Removing the flag from this state’s Capitol would not be an act of political correctness, it would not be an insult to the valor of Confederate soldiers, it would simply be an acknowledgement that the cause for which they fought, the cause of slavery, was wrong”, Obama said.
Less than half, 42%, of Americans say the flag is racist and should be removed. But there hasn’t been much of a shift in how Americans view the flag, according to a June 26-28 CNN/ORC poll released Thursday.
The poll by CNN/ORC worldwide reveals that 41 percent of all Americans polled “consider the shootings in Charleston terrorism”.
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The poll carried a margin of error of plus or minus 3 points overall, with a margin of 5.5 points among blacks and 3.5 points among whites. Additional interviews were conducted with African-Americans and combined with those reached through the initial sample of 1,017 for a total of 303 non-Hispanic black respondents. Another 65 percent agreed that companies should stop the sale of the flags, and 59 percent want state flags redesigned.
