Defenders of Confederate Symbols Mount a Counterattack

Not since at least the civil-rights movement have Americans challenged the South’s Confederate symbols as fervently as they did in 2015.

The June massacre of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., by a believed white supremacist “opened the floodgates,” said John W. Adams, spokesman for the Florida Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Since then, officials in South Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Florida and elsewhere r