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.
NOT more than 10-15% of northers are DYs, but that minority is REALLY filled with HATE, is terminally MEAN-spirited & LOUD-mouthed.
it is my belief that if the DYs were not so busy HATING the southland, our flags & symbols, our culture & our southern PEOPLE, that they would be some other sort of BIGOT. (be not deceived, DYs ARE bigots, who are NO BETTER than RACISTS/anti-Semites & other similar HATERS.)
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
Let me give YOU a question:
Show me where slavery was PROHIBITED in the Constitution.
If you can't........
lol AT you & all the other members of the "DY coven of revisionist,HATE-filled, lunatics".
I believe that if the men and materials had been equal, the South would have won, hands down. Southern Generals were the best as a whole. Even West Point doesn't dispute that fact.
he has totally gone over to the south-HATING, DAMNyankee side. (GOOD RIDDENCE, i say.)
just thought you's want to know.
free dixie,sw
PITY that you don't know that.
free dixie,sw
if i described a piece of furniture, which has a back, a seat, 4 legs and upon which a person can sit,as a CHAIR, you wouldn't think i was calling that piece of furniture "names".
free dixie,sw.
all to TYPICAL of a bunch of cowardly bureaucrats, too!
free dixie,sw
NASCAR's "sniveling cowards" will LEARN it's NOT smart to offend their base of customers for the sake of political correctness.
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
I've been wanting to get one to fly at home.
> Care to provide us with some quotes that specifically claim that the problem was primarily with slavery?
Tell me: have you read the ordinances of secession?
I agree with you. All the CSA had to do was to absorb the blows and survive. The Union had the harder to task-to suppress a widespread rebellion over a huge area. It was a tremendous accomplishment for the US aided by a widespread failure of Confederate will when the going got tough in 1864-65.
Southern Generals were the best as a whole. Even West Point doesn't dispute that fact.
I think Lee and Jackson were the best of the best. But even those guys had their lapses. After that the Union produced men who did what had to be done to win like Grant, Sherman , Sheridan and Thomas. While the CSA had men who did whatever it took to bring about disaster such as Hood and Bragg. On general, I'd say the generalship on both sides were pretty close just as the rank and file on both sides were comparable man-to-man.
The reb soldier was good, but no better than his Union counterpart. Both sides produced men of remarkable fortitude.
Today's self-inflicted rebel rabble rouser's have nothing better to do then solely instigate unwarranted trouble.
You mean anyone not slithering in that tiny, fanatical neo-confederate minority of cry babies for the lost cause.
my ancestors lost their bid to be FREE, as there was simply not enough THINGS & people to win the war. in the end, VALOR, dedication & TENACITY was simply NOT enough.
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
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