You're in the early stages of your research, so it's no wonder that everything sounds the same.
Take notes on the important points made in these articles.
Study this site for excellent advice about thesis statements.
http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/acadwrite/thesistatement.html
I'm having trouble putting together a thesis and topic sentences. There is so much great information with my sources, everything seems to sound the same.
This is a layout of how my topics could be arranged and organized . I don't know how to do a good transition inbetween the new starting paragraph.
paragraph 2: talk about current controversy & C.F's history
paragraph 3: talk about C.F being a symbol of heritage
paragraph 4: talk about C.F being a symbol of hate
In the wake of the June 2015 mass shooting and anti-African American hate crime in a Charleston, S.C Church, many public officials called for the removal of the Confederate flag from grounds near the South Caroline State House, and it was eventually taken down in July. The origins of the pattern on the Confederate flag, the "battle flag" and its precise historical meaning in the American Civil War are complex, as is its subsequent resonance in the decades after the war, and its symbolic import has been hotly contested in more recent decades. During the period 2000-2003, South Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi all saw significant public controversies over the symbolism of flags in their states, with verious public measures and remedies proposed and debated.
Prompt: Can the flag stand distrinctly as a generalized remembrance of Southern, geographically based heritage, or is it inextricably linked to the enslavement of African-Americans and racist ideology?
2 answers
You need to research the original symbolism represented by the battle flag. Who designed it and what did HE think it represented? What did it represent to the Army of Northern Virginia? Who used it after the Civil War (and during the Civil Rights Era of the 1950s-60s) to represent what? You also need to explore what the "heritage" of the geographic area known as The South might be.