Posted on 07/18/2006 12:49:14 PM PDT by aomagrat
A Confederate heritage group says its free-speech rights were violated when a landowner removed a billboard promoting Southern history near the famed Darlington Raceway.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans plans to demonstrate at the State House next month and buy radio advertisements to complain about losing its billboard on U.S. 52, about two miles from the racetrack.
“This is the most chilling thing I’ve seen against freedom of speech,” spokesman Don Gordon said.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans bought the billboard this spring in response to remarks by a NASCAR executive about the rebel flag.
The billboard featured a Confederate flag and a checkered race flag. The message said, “Victory is Great, but Honor is Greater. Defend your Southern heritage.”
The billboard, taken down briefly in May, also listed the group’s phone number and name.
Officials of the S.C. Central Railroad, which owns the land where the billboard stood, said the message was “controversial” and needed to come down.
“It is not in our commercial interests to have billboards on our property displaying messages that might be controversial in the local community, whatever the substance of the messages,” a company spokeswoman said in a prepared statement.
“We made no judgment as to the content of the billboard, but we did understand it to be controversial and therefore asked that it be removed.”
An outdoor advertising company, hired by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, installed the sign just before Darlington’s annual Mother’s Day race. It was removed permanently June 16, according to a July 11 letter from the S.C. Sons of Confederate Veterans commander, Randall Burbage, to fellow members.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans says it is an international, nonprofit historical society. The group, which says it has 30,000 members nationally, has taken positions in defense of the Confederate flag in South Carolina.
‘NOT ... ANYTHING FAVORABLE’
In October, NASCAR’s chief executive, Brian France, told the CBS television show “60 Minutes” the Confederate flag was “not a flag that I look at with anything favorable. That’s for sure.”
As it branches away from its traditional Southern fan base, NASCAR has tried to shed its rebel-flag-waving image. The nation’s largest stock car racing organization has started diversity programs and tried to appeal to black and Hispanic fans. The Darlington Raceway, in business for more than 50 years, has served as a pillar of NASCAR.
“A member of the France family said some uncomplimentary things, so we put that billboard up to make a statement and to stimulate new members,” the confederate veterans’ Gordon said. “We really didn’t expect anything like this to occur.”
Attempts to reach NASCAR spokesman Jim Hunter were unsuccessful. However, Hunter said last spring that NASCAR did not seek to have the sign removed.
“If we find out NASCAR is involved, you can expect airplanes towing Confederate banners over every NASCAR race anywhere in this nation — forever,” Gordon said.
Mac Josey, vice president at the Darlington Raceway, said he knew nothing about the billboard and did not ask that it be removed. He said the track does not fly Confederate flags, although some fans do.
Wesley Blackwell, chairman of the Darlington County Council, said he heard about the billboard during a social gathering at the Darlington speedway in May. Blackwell said the county did not ask that the sign be removed.
‘NOT A WORD WOULD BE SAID’
The Confederate veterans group paid Palmetto Outdoor Media more than $5,000 to put up the advertisement, Gordon said. Most of the money was refunded when the sign was removed.
However, Gordon is not satisfied.
“What if it was a sign trying to bring new members to the NAACP? We all know not a word would be said,” Gordon said.
Palmetto Outdoor Media co-owner Rodney Monroe said his company’s land-lease agreement with S.C. Central Railroad has a section that called for the removal of offensive advertisements.
“We lease the property from the company and we, obviously, crossed the line as far as what was acceptable to them ... and were asked to remove the sign,” Monroe said. “We are not in the business to cause or create controversy.”
Gordon said his group had a contract with Palmetto Outdoor for the sign to stay up through part of next year.
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees every American the right to free speech. However, the sign was on private property, and the property’s owner ordered it down.
Bill Rogers, director of the S.C. Press Association, said that removal violated the principle of free speech, if nothing else. The sign did not appear to be inflammatory, he said.
“I can see why they would feel their rights are violated, that if someone doesn’t like the message, they take it down,” Rogers said.
Utah wasn't a state in the Civil War, as it was admitted in 1896.
No.
Sorry, you're wrong. The north did lose more men than the south. Northern casualties: Battle deaths: 110,070; Disease, etc.: 250,152; Total 360,222. Southern casualties: Battle deaths: 94,000; Disease, etc.: 164,000; Total 258,000.
>>Since when is Utah a "blue zone?"
>Utah wasn't a state in the Civil War, as it was admitted in 1896.
"What do you blue zone socialists have now besides gay pride parades and leaders such as Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy?"
So again I ask: how is Utah a "blue zone?"
> I salute the honor and courage of those on both sides.
There is honor and courage on both sides of *every* war. There were honorable and courageous among the VC, Republican Guards, Soviet army, SS, imperial Japanese, North Koreans, revolutionary Iranians. But if you honor their courage by honoring the flawed ideologies they were fighting for by waving their flags and symbols...
> Sorry, you're wrong.
You're responding to the wrong question. Remember, the original question was "Is that why...?"
I hadn't seen that the people who wanted to post something on that sign owned it. I also haven't seen that the posters of the message own the land. If they do own both the sign and the land it is on (as opposed to leasing the land), then I don't see how anyone has any legal standing to challenge the sign that they want to post.
If there is a lease involved, then the issue becomes what the terms of the lease are.
In checking back to the original article, it says the railroad owns the land, not the SCV. What rights that may or may not give them regarding the contents of a sign that is on their land I don't know. There may be some language in the contract that the owner of the sign signed with the owner of the land that allows the landowner some control over the contents of the sign.
Well. Unlike you,I don't equate my ancestors who fought for the South with the VC, Republican Army, Soviet Army, SS, Imperial Japs. etc.
This kind of attitude just stirs up unneeded animosity. Don't forget the irony of where the South stands today - as the most openly patriotic part of the country and the homeland of the greatest percentage of our soldiers.
free dixie,sw
btw, a friend of mine is selling me a 6x6 foot piece of his farm n(in fee simple for the princely sum of $40.oo, atop a tall hill in my home county in TX, right on the north side of I-30. i plan to erect a (lighted at night) 60ft flagpole with a large THIRD NATIONAL flag, thereon.
i DARE anyone to say even one word about that, too. it will belong to me & mine, after i'm gone.
free dixie,sw
The American Revolution also "perpetuated" slavery. You gonna start crying about how evil our founding fathers were now? You must get very angry every time you look at all those slave-owners on our coins and bills.
I've found if you "keep up the scare" on these liberal trolls like "bam bam" they will eventually reveal their true agenda.
I don't know if you recall "Whiskey Papa" or Chancellor Palpatine" or a few of the other infamous anti-Southern Freeper liberals. But they flapped their gums a little too wide and often and are no longer here.
> The American Revolution also "perpetuated" slavery.
However, as you are well aware, the revolutionary war was not *about* the right to keep owning slaves. The War Of Southern Aggression, on the other hand, *was* all about slavery.
In the American Declaration of Independence, you'll find no reference to keeping slavery being a cause for rebellion. But if you read the Southern states equivalent ordnances of secession, they make it clear that it was *all* about slavery. The most important difference between the American Constitution and the Southern Constitution was the difference between this:
No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
and this:
No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.
> You must get very angry every time you look at all those slave-owners on our coins and bills.
As any *rational* person would comprehend... no. There's a difference between having a bad habit, and being willing to murder your fellow man in order to perpetuate that bad habit.
> liberal trolls...
I find it interesting that you think that only liberals would be appalled at celebrating the enslavement of your fellow man.
Memo to Billy Yank. Nothing was "Civil" about that War of Suppression. And at LEAST we are still willing to fight for what the Founders believed every person should have - Freedom. Its not about being Politically Correct (State Sponsored speech and thought) - ITS ABOUT THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT TO EXPRESS ONE'S SELF AS THEY SEE FIT without some special interest group whining to some Congressman, who in return trying to curry favor (votes), so he/she gets a law passed which abridges more of our basic freedoms. Its also known as being about EQUAL PROTECTION UNDER THE LAW.
Another memo to Billy Yank. Stop being so easily led around by the nose - THINK FOR YOURSELF!
Now I understand why they call you one of "Uncle Sam's MISGUIDED Children". You're comment shows how ignorant you are about what the Founders believed and where our basic American ideals come from. Go back and read the first two paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence. Then study up on your history of the years leading up to the War of Supression - then we'll chat.
Because the South attacked the Federal troops on the Federal base at Ft. Sumter.
No, because Lincoln and the Northern business interests he repped for (remember, Lincoln was a railroad lawyer, not an abolition lawyer or a civil-rights lawyer) were determined to drag the Southern States back into the Union by force.
The Northern economic-development model required a payor (street synonym: chump). The South was the payor. They couldn't leave. If they did, the Northerners would have to pay for their own development, which was a nonstarter for them.
There were no "traitors" before Ft. Sumter, so I'll trouble you to take down that word.
The entire State of South Carolina had renounced their citizenship and changed their allegiance openly to the Confederacy, by a lawful and moral procedure of popular convention. The People own the Constitution, not the other way around. They can leave the Union if they wish.
You are in the unenviable position of explaining how a People who are NOT free to abolish their Union and change their Constitution, are still "free" somehow.
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