From TPM - 2006

With regards to Governor Allen and the Macaca Incident

“The point is, symbols matter, they should matter, and this is something that I wish I learned a lot earlier,” Allen said. “Even if your heart is pure, the things you say and do and the symbols you use do matter because of the way others may take them.”

Allen wore a Confederate flag pin on his lapel in his 1970 graduation picture from a Southern California high school. He hung a noose from a plant in his Charlottesville law office in the 1980s and a Confederate flag inside his home. As governor in the mid-1990s, he alienated some by signing a resolution that designated a Confederate history month in Virginia but did not acknowledge the evils of slavery.