Free Republic

GREENBRIER, Ark. Recent high school graduate Anthony Bauswell wanted to join the U.S. Marines, but contends he was rejected by a recruiter because of the color of his skin. On his left rib cage Bauswell has a Confederate flag tattoo, with a banner across it reading “Southern Pride,” and he told Arkansas Matters that the Marines recruiting center in Conway insists it disqualifies him from serving his country.

Last July, Anthony Hervey, an outspoken black advocate for the Confederate flag, was killed in a car crash. Arlene Barnum, a surviving passenger in the vehicle, told authorities and the media that they had been forced off the road by a carload of "angry young black men" after Hervey, while wearing his Confederate kepi, stopped at a convenience store en route to his home in Oxford, Mississippi. His death was in no small part caused by the gross level of ignorance, organized deceit and anger about the War of 1861. Much of the ignorance stems from the fact that most...

Civic leaders, activists, artists and others are celebrating, marching and paying homage Monday to Martin Luther King Jr., marking the 30th anniversary of the federal holiday honoring the slain civil rights leader. In South Carolina, civil rights leaders planned a march to their state capitol as in past years when their rally highlighted calls to remove the Confederate flag from Statehouse grounds. The King Day at the Dome gathering began in 2000 with that call. Last July, organizers got their wish as South Carolina swiftly removed the flag which had flown at the capitol for more than 50 years after...

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz arrived Jan. 4 at the first stop on a six-day tour of Iowa. The Republican presidential candidate was set to visit 28 counties by bus. (Photo by Patrick Svitek) WASHINGTON — In the more than 200 events he's held since launching his campaign for the White House 10 months ago, Ted Cruz has tested out an unorthodox strategy, one that could rewrite the rules of Republican presidential politics.Since the Texas senator declared his candidacy in March, 40 percent of his public events have taken place in Iowa, according to a Texas Tribune analysis of his travel schedule as of Saturday. But...

TRUE HISTORY OF THE WAR FOR SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE IN THIS AGE OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS there has never been a greater need and greater opportunity to refresh our understanding of what happened in America in the years 1861-1865 and start defending our Southern forebears as strongly as they ought to be defended. There is plenty of true history available to us. It is our job to make it known. All the institutions of American society, including nearly all Southern institutions and leaders, are now doing their best to separate the Confederacy off from the rest of American history and push it...

Rubio wants a piece of the March states too, but his rivals have the momentum. "Amongst a lot of the grassroots, Sen. Cruz is definitely picking up momentum, there's no doubt about it," said Ryan Haynes, the unaligned chairman of the Tennessee GOP. NASHVILLE, Tenn.:The battle for the South has settled into a race between two candidates, and neither is Marco Rubio. In interviews with more than two dozen party officials, political operatives and activists, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump were repeatedly named as front-runners and likely winners in one of the most conservative regions of the country. Both contenders...

The unique base of support that has pushed Donald Trump to the top of the Republican presidential field in national polls is also likely to give him boost this spring when the campaign shifts to the South. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has drawn wide attention for his own efforts in Southern states, many of which will vote as part of the big, March 1 "SEC Primary," when more convention delegates will be awarded than on any other day. Mr. Cruz, who is surging in the polls, is focusing on evangelical Christian voters and other social conservatives, which form the...

The unique base of support that has pushed Donald Trump to the top of the Republican presidential field in national polls is also likely to give him boost this spring when the campaign shifts to the South. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has drawn wide attention for his own efforts in Southern states, many of which will vote as part of the big, March 1 "SEC Primary" when more convention delegates will be awarded than on any other day. Mr. Cruz, who is surging in the polls, is focusing on evangelical Christian voters and other social conservatives, which form the...

DAPHNE, Ala.- After several days of the most intense scrutiny he's faced as a presidential candidate, Ted Cruz took the stage here on Saturday and delivered a fiery performance to a crowd of more than 1,300 cheering fans, aiming to put a turbulent week behind him.He roared threats to ISIL. He cracked jokes with the talkative audience members. And he received a big assist from Jeff Sessions, among the party's staunchest immigration hardliners and, the 2016 contender suggested, a possible secretary of homeland security in a Cruz administration."One of the things you've been hearing about is criticism of Ted and...

A southwest Virginia lawmaker has filed a bill that would allow a Confederate battle flag to again be displayed on state-issued license plates. Senator Charles W. Carrico Sr. told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that his constituents believe Gov. Terry McAuliffe went too far when he moved to have the plates phased out. The Grayson County Republican says he represents his district "first and foremost." ...

Riveria Beach renamed Old Dixie Highway in honor of [Hussein] Obama during a ceremony on Thursday, a change that city officials say will help move the community past its segregated history. It is the second road in Palm Beach County to be named in honor of [Hussein], county officials said. Two years ago, Pahokee in western Palm Beach County renamed East First Street to Barack Obama Boulevard. A crowd cheered as a crew lowered the Old Dixie Highway street sign in Riviera Beach and raised one bearing the [Hussein's] name...

When Governor Nikki Haley – in the wake of the shooting that claimed the lives of nine churchgoers in Charleston – called for the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the South Carolina State Capitol, it marked a significant shift. Across the South, symbols of the Confederacy have been taken off of store shelves and monuments to Confederate generals and leaders are being taken down even in 300-year-old cities like New Orleans. In one city in the Deep South, the name chosen to replace Old Dixie Highway, as WPTV reports, is a sign of the extent of the cultural...

Names and flags have been removed from statehouses and street signs across the US, but at the stone-etched Georgia monument, no one is able to claim victory Exactly a century ago this holiday weekend, more than a dozen men climbed to the top of a mountain outside Atlanta, pulled on white hoods and lit a 16ft, kerosene-soaked wooden cross. It marked the rebirth of Ku Klux Klan, and Stone Mountain became the Klan’s spiritual home.

After a student filed a “bias report” accusing a student with a Confederate flag sticker on his laptop of racism, Framingham State University officials offered offended students counseling.“We recognize that bias incidents are upsetting for the entire campus community, but especially for the target(s) and witness(es) of these incidents,” wrote Sean Huddleston, the Massachusetts-based school’s chief diversity and inclusion officer, in a campus-wide email published in part by FSU campus newspaper The Gatepost. “It is strongly suggested that anyone impacted by a bias incident find someone to speak with.”In his email, Huddleston assured students “symbols such as these are not condoned...

In an undated handout photo, a plaque at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va., commemorates a stretch of the Potomac as the “River of Blood” due to casualties there during the Civil War. Between the 14th hole and the 15th tee of one of the club's two courses, Mr. Trump installed a flagpole on a stone pedestal overlooking the Potomac, to which he affixed a plaque purportedly designating "The River of Blood." "Many great American soldiers, both of the North and South, died at this spot," the inscription reads. "The casualties were so great that the water would...

Did Hillary Clinton put on a southern accent on campaign stop in Memphis? Some critics claim she changed her voice Hillary Clinton has been accused of putting on a southern accent during a campaign stop in Memphis. During a speech at LeMoyne-Owen College earlier this week, some people claimed the Democratic presidential candidate's voice had something of a southern twang. Clinton has faced similar accusations in the past, most notably during speeches in Alabama and South Carolina.

LOUISVILLE, Miss. — In single strokes after the massacre of nine black churchgoers in Charleston in June, Confederate battle flags were taken from statehouse grounds in South Carolina and Alabama, pulled from shelves at major retailers like Walmart and declared unwelcome, if to (limited effect), at Nascar races. What happened so swiftly elsewhere is not so simple in Mississippi. The Confederate battle flag is not simply flying in one hotly disputed spot at the State Capitol but occupying the upper left corner of the state flag, which has been flying since 1894. (And as recently as 2001), Mississippians voted by...

SALT LAKE CITY -- A fight outside a Salt Lake City hotel early Sunday morning could possibly be investigated as a hate crime, authorities said Monday. Cell phone video captured a black man throw a punch at a Caucasian man who knocked him out. The fight was over an argument about a Confederate Flag decal on a truck parked at the Red Lion Hotel. The truck belonged to Kelly Leeper’s friend. Leeper was in town for the Garth Brooks concert. On Sunday, he said looked out the window of his room at the Red Lion and saw a group of...

Attorneys for an Albemarle County-based civil liberties advocacy group are challenging the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles’ order to revoke specialty commemorative license plates bearing the Confederate battle flag. The Rutherford Institute’s legal counsel filed a petition Wednesday in Brunswick County Circuit Court asking for a review and reversal of the divisive ruling to recall the plates issued to 1,600 members of the state’s division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Gov. Terry McAuliffe called for the change earlier this year when the flag fell into controversy following a racially motivated shooting in June at a South Carolina church, calling...

BRUNSWICK, Maine — Bowdoin College will no longer bestow the Jefferson Davis Award, after the college’s board of trustees voted to approve President Clayton Rose’s proposal to end the practice. The annual cash award to a student of government and legal studies who excels in constitutional law was named for the Confederate president. It was established in 1972 with an endowed gift from the United Daughters of the Confederacy, according to a news release from the college. In 1858, Davis received an honorary degree from Bowdoin College.