Virginia Group Says Applications Up Since Confederate Plates Allowed

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - The Virginia chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans says it is seeing a surge of applications for membership since it won a court fight to put the Rebel flag on state license plates.

Only descendants of Confederate veterans are eligible for the specialty license plates.

The Virginia chapter said membership applications have tripled since the state dropped its three-year court fight against the logo earlier this year.

The group's state commander, Brag Bowling, said the flurry of applications also is typical of every time the Sons of Confederate Veterans are involved in a public squabble.

"People don't like to hear that their heritage is less meaningful than anyone else's," Bowling said. "It makes people mad, and that helps our organization grow."

The group sued Virginia in 1999 after state lawmakers approved a specialty license plate for the organization but refused to allow the group's logo, which features a Confederate flag. Some legislators said the flag represents bigotry.

However, a federal judge ruled last year that Virginia's refusal to issue the tag amounted to discrimination. The ruling was upheld on appeal.

A spokeswoman with the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles said the agency had issued 550 of the plates as of July 2.

Jeff Ellett's new Confederate license plates have been on his red and gray Dodge pickup for about three weeks.

"I've had people at work, or on the street, or in shopping centers ask about it," he said. "Now it has caused some of these people to say, 'Let me see if I have any Confederate ancestors, so I can get the plates.'"

Owen Yates was one of the first to put in for the plates, even before the issue was settled in the courts. He enclosed them in a locking plastic holder to keep them safe.

"I'm proud of my ancestors; they fought for the state," said Yates, a group member who works as a consultant at the DuPont plant south of Richmond. "It was a different time. People had lots of loyalty for the states."

He added: "But then, I'm from the old school. I want to go back to the '50s, when I didn't know we had a racial problem."

I don't have any confederate ancestors (I'm Jewish) but at this point in history to me, the Confederate flag just represents the South...which has some mighty fine people living in it.
Cheers to you Southerners.

I've been here in the South for but half a decade, but the hospitality and charm of the place is beyond what its reputation claims.

But like those other folks here have suggested, check out a copy of that book about *Jews in the Confederacy* from Ben Judah on down, and do a little research. You might just find a family skeleton in that closet....

Jews In The Confederacy

"The Jewish Confederates" (University of South Carolina Press"

The book, by Charleston lawyer Robert Rosen, reveals what amounts to a de facto coverup of the 300-plus-year history of Jews in the South.

BOOK DETAILING 'SECRET' CHAPTER OF HISTORY STIRS CONTROVERSY
Bill Hendrick - Staff
Sunday, January 7, 2001

As a kid growing up in Atlanta's Druid Hills neighborhood in the mid-1950s, Reg Regenstein often went relic hunting with friends, hoping to find Civil War cannonballs and artillery shells that were being dug up with regularity.
"I'd find an old bullet sometimes, but never anything of significance," says Regenstein, a 57-year-old author and former CIA intelligence officer. "But it was pretty common for people to find Minie balls and shells, some still lodged in trees."
Unlike most of his Jewish friends, he didn't see the Civil War through an impersonal prism --- as somebody else's history. He vaguely knew it was his own, because many of his ancestors fought in what his mother, longtime civil rights supporter Helen Regenstein, still calls the "War of Northern Aggression."
Now, to his delight, he's learning much more than he ever dreamed he would, mostly because of a new book, "The Jewish Confederates" (University of South Carolina Press, $39.95), which is stirring controversy among Jews and attracting some scholarly praise. The book, by Charleston lawyer Robert Rosen, reveals what amounts to a de facto coverup of the 300-plus-year history of Jews in the South.
Historians have recorded that African-Americans and Indians fought in the Rebel army, but Rosen's is the first major work detailing the contribution of the South's Jewish community, then about 25,000 strong, to the Lost Cause.
"Many folks," says Rosen, 53, "are reluctant to admit that a people known for liberal views, and for annually celebrating their own freedom from slavery in Egypt during the Passover holiday, supported the Confederacy, which defended human bondage. It's not something many Jews want to hear."

Fly the Bonnie Blue Flag.
Or the Stars and Bars
Or the Battle Flag for the Confederate Army of the Potomac
They'll never know what hit 'em.

Just so! And might I also add:

General Nathan Forrest's 12-star battle flag;
obscure, perhaps, but honoured!

That'll put the scare into 'em!

-archy-/-

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.