“It’s More Than Heritage. It’s our Freedom,” Oklahomans Gather to Support Confederate Flag

KFOR ^ | AUGUST 29, 2015 | KRISTEN SHANAHAN

[nickcarraway]

It has been a season of controversy over the Confederate flag. Supporters rallied from an Oklahoma City Walmart to the Oklahoma State Capitol on Saturday.

Supporters say they are upset about the removal of Confederate flags and monuments across the country.

“This is our heritage and it’s more than heritage. It’s our freedom,” Allen Branch said.

What is also known as the rebel flag, has been at the center of debate for years.

At a rally held in July, a woman told supporters why she is against it.

“I’m letting you know that this flag right here represents hate,” Kiana Smith said. “Please do not be fooled and brainwashed by the misconceptions, that flag in the south was about slavery.”

However, others say the flag does not symbolize racism or hate.

“It’s really about the southern heritage. It’s about the south. It’s about the pride,” Andrew Duncomb said.

“This flag stands for my ancestors who gave it all and lived through a terrifically horrible time after the war, and I just don’t think I need to let anybody forget that,” Jim Orebaugh, with the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said.

Supporters who spoke with NewsChannel 4 say they are misunderstood.

“It’s just over time, it’s like people are trying to tell me I’m full of hate and I’m not full of any hate,” JR Hooper said.

“There’s always going to be racist people, but when you look at the majority of people that do fly that flag, and they get scrutinized and they get put in the same as the ones who are racist, it’s wrong,” Duncomb said. “People need to realize that everyone comes from different cultures. Everyone’s different, but they got to learn to live together. They got to learn to basically respect one another.”

Some of the people who took part in the rally also flew Confederate flags when President Obama came to Oklahoma.

[grobdriver]

“I’m letting you know that this flag right here represents hate,” Kiana Smith said.

Get stuffed, Kiana,

You are the embodiment of hate.

[PATRIOT1876]

And yet, you almost NEVER read about a person with a confederate flag calling for large numbers of people to kill black police officers....

[StoneWall Brigade]

Dixie Ping

[kearnyirish2]

I was just in Ocean City Maryland, and I have never been as proud of my country as I was when I saw the piles of Confederate flag gear all over the boardwalk...T-shirts, bikinis, towels, everything...

[MichaelCorleone]

About time this was said loud and clear.

Nikki Haley (SC)- are you listening?? How about Texas...Tennessee (parts of it)?

You should be standing strong for the CBF. The South has a proud heritage and rightly so. What’s more American that resistance to tyranny?

[wardaddy]

In before Freepers who claim Oklahoma ain’t southern

[refermech]

You know, I sense some real ugliness coming down the pike. Keep your powder dry!

[Boomer One]

And yet the Rainbow flag still flies despite their destruction of families, marriage, and corruption of religion.

[Terry L Smith]

So, folks, are the minority Negroes trying to tell the other 85% of America that THEY cannot do, think, write, speak, think, or own ‘x’, if it offends the Negro?

[norton]

“I’m letting you know that this flag right here represents hate,” Kiana Smith said.

Sorry you hate it so much...What's your opinion of a Rainbow flag that represents people shooting police in the back while filling their patrol car's gas tank?

[noinfringers2]

Question! What heritage does Kiana bring to the argument(s).

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Here are the Confederate flags that can be flown and no one will be the wiser.

Choctaw Confederate flag

Cherokee Confederate flag used by STAND WATIE, the last Confederate general to surrender.

Those who foam at the mouth and glaze over their eyes at the Confederate Battle Flag suffer from selective outrage.

Yesterday I watched the movie TASK FORCE with Gary Cooper. In the battle scene near the end, after the USS Franklin is hit with a kamakazi, we get a shot of the tower and bridge in flames. There is what appears to be a Confederate Battle Flag flying from the mast. Anyone else notice?

[Retain Mike]

I had this letter published in at least one paper. Hopefully I irritated others who read it in newsrooms.

Demeaning Our Military Heritage

This country owes as much of its enviable martial heritage to the South as the North. But now to serve popular morality, we must banish from history the Confederate battle flag and those who served under it. Responding to these assertions, I quote Joshua Chamberlain who received the Confederate surrender at Appomattox.

“Before us in proud humiliation stood the embodiment of manhood: men whom neither toils and sufferings, nor the fact of death, nor disaster, nor hopelessness could bend from their resolve; standing before us now, thin, worn, and famished, but erect, and with eyes looking level into ours, waking memories that bound us together as no other bond;—was not such manhood to be welcomed back into a Union so tested and assured?”

Winston Churchill commented concerning American entry into WW II that victory was then assured, because our Civil War demonstrated the tenacity required to defeat the Nazis.

Joshua Chamberlain
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joshua_Chamberlain

[wardaddy]

Stand Watie

I miss you