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Remove Confederate flag? Panhandle city must decide
Orlando Slantnel ^ | 12 June 2002 | AP

Posted on 06/12/2002 7:48:50 AM PDT by stainlessbanner

CRESTVIEW -- The NAACP wants the Confederate battle flag removed from a memorial on city property that honors Florida's last Civil War veteran, who died in 1957.

Sabu Williams, local chapter president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, on Monday likened the flag to the Berlin Wall, contending it represents a wall of terror, hatred, murder, bigotry and shame.

"The heritage of the Confederate battle flag is that it was meant to divide," Williams told the City Council. "Today, we should be looking at things that bind us, not divide us."

The council delayed a decision until June 24 after listening to Williams and some of about 70 other residents who packed its chambers. Each side was given 10 minutes.

Martin Barker, representing the Florida Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said the flag is a sign of history, not hate. "History is a fact," Barker said. "We can't change it, but we can learn from it. If we bury it, we will deprive our children and our grandchildren of that fact."

The memorial was put up along State Road 85, one of Crestview's main thoroughfares, a year after William "Uncle Bill" Lundy died in this Panhandle city. An earlier effort to remove the flag failed in 1996.

Williams said he had no issue with the memorial, just the flag.

One of Lundy's grandsons, Hayden Lundy, argued to keep the flag, saying his grandfather never hated anyone. "Uncle Bill Lundy was a loving man," he said.

The NAACP has organized protests and economic boycotts in other places where it has fought to bring down the Confederate battle flag.

"We will do what we have to do," Williams said. "We will not stop until we have succeeded in removing that flag."


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: confederateflag; crestview; dixielist; florida; heritage; honor; naacpcriminals
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To: stainlessbanner
Me, too...it's my fave. I have a wide assortment of flags, and I just added the Continental Flag from the American Revolution the other day.....I'm going to have to ask a seamstress to do something with it and with my Betsy Ross, though. The Continental has the canton in white nylon tacked over the red ensign, which shows through, making the canton pink!! And the nylon Betsy Ross's union is printed (the stripes are sewn), and for some reason the stars are small and dim -- I'm going to get her to add some bigger, brighter stars. I'll also cherish a 13-star naval ensign when I can get one -- they're available now, but those puppies are almost 100 bucks a pop! They're from a company that supplies every last national flag ever flown; if you want a 20-star or a 46-star national color in nylon, they're your source. Just get your wallet out.

In addition to my Revolutionary War flags, which I'll be displaying soon (I hang them all out in the days leading up to the Fourth, and fly Betsy Ross on the Fourth), I have a number of Confederate flags and am looking for more -- most wanted right now is a copy of General Polk's corps flag. He was an Episcopal bishop, and so he took his battle flag and redesigned it as a red Cross of St. George -- bearing stars as before -- and uprighted it on a field of blue. He added white fimbrations to the cross as per heraldic convention, but some of his Tennessee troops dispensed with them when making their regimental colors and sewed the red cross directly to the blue. I've seen illustrations of a couple of these Tennessee regimentals somewhere, one of them with the fimbration, one without.

41 posted on 06/16/2002 1:25:03 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: lentulusgracchus
Excellent collection, my friend. In a similar story, my best buddy's father has a 70 ft. flag pole with rocks and flood lights in his front yard- we have affectionately named it Memorial Park! The US flag, Don't Tread on Me, and Naval Jack fly at M.Park : )
42 posted on 06/16/2002 8:39:18 PM PDT by stainlessbanner
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To: billbears
Wonder when they will demand removal of Lee Circle and the statue overlooking the city of New Orleans...with the Civil War museum right around the corner?
43 posted on 06/16/2002 8:45:03 PM PDT by Johnny Crab
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To: stainlessbanner; Johnny Crab
My flags are all 3'x5' (the affordable and most-available size!)......which limits pole height to about 25' or so. And then there's the matter of , do I want a pole in my front yard?

The Confederate monuments are all gone in New Orleans; I read in the New Orleans paper that they are under lock and key in a secret location by order of the former mayor, Marc Morial (or maybe his daddy, Ernest Morial). No telling how long Bobby Lee's likeness will remain -- they'll pull it down eventually, but I think the state legislature's prospective, and consequential, displeasure is a restraining influence. Elsewhere in the South, as in Alabama, black politicians are making an issue of Confederate monuments and refusing to allow bills for their maintenance to pass, howbeit they are on public property.

44 posted on 06/17/2002 2:13:22 AM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: lentulusgracchus
black politicians are making an issue of Confederate monuments and refusing to allow bills for their maintenance to pass

Wait 'til somebody comes for their symbols - their number will be up one day. Then they will realize, they should have stood with us and preserved the memory of our ancestors - all of them....honored.

45 posted on 06/17/2002 5:58:51 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
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