A HANDSHAKE
From LaFayette
Zahra Karinshak speaks Arabic with a strong Southern accent
BY CANDICE DYER PHOTOGRAPHY BY STAN KAADY
One day as the millennium dawned, Gov. Roy Barnes dropped a bombshell on his staff: He wanted to change the state flag.
"We all said, 'You'll lose the election,'" recalls Zahra Karinshak, who
was his deputy executive counsel. "He said, 'I know, but it's the right
thing to do.'"
"There were a lot of misperceptions about it," Gov. Barnes says today.
"Many people believed [the flag] had always looked that way."
In fact, the Confederate imagery was added in 1956, as a middle-finger
to integration.
"Zahra researched the year 1956 to give context to the times," Barnes
says. "She found legislation denying police their pensions if they didn't
enforce segregation. She played an integral role in changing the flag. She
helped me draft the legislation, and she helped me work the legislators
by educating them on the true history behind that symbol."
Still, the initiative proved highly controversial, and though it finally
passed, it ultimately cost the governor another term.
"It was a scary time; there were protesters screaming at us," Karinshak
says. "Even my Paw-Paw [maternal grandfather], who was very astute,
asked me if I'd be able to find a job when it was done."
The day of the big unveiling, she was in possession of the new flag
design, charged with keeping it under wraps. "Reporters were offering me
bribes to get a sneak peek at it," she says. "That was a proud moment,
because of the governor's political courage."