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Confederate flag waves on license plates
By PHYLLIS SPEIDELL, The Virginian-Pilot
© July 13, 2002
SUFFOLK -- Vehicle by vehicle, the Confederate battle flag is joining the ranks of Harley Davidson wings and Lions Club shields on Virginia license plates, sparking little public debate.
After a three-year court battle, some members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans are proudly displaying plates with a small Confederate flag logo on a shadowy background of three Confederate horsemen.
Similar license plates bearing the Confederate flag have already been available in other states, including Maryland and North Carolina.
In Virginia, a spokesman for the Department of Motor Vehicles said about 550 people have added $10 to their vehicle registration fee to own the special plate. Only certified SCV members qualify, and applicants must show proof of membership.
So far, reaction to the plate has been either positive or neutral, said Bill Richardson, commander of the SCV Tom Smith Camp in Suffolk. A few days after attaching one to his vehicle, Richardson sat at an intersection in Norfolk, looking in his rearview mirror.
``This guy behind me bails out of his truck and comes running up and taps on my window,'' he said, then admitted he was relieved to learn the stranger was an SCV member from North Carolina.
``He was just happy to see my plate, the first Virginia SCV plate he had seen,'' Richardson said.
Not everyone feels the same way.
``I have yet to see one, but I will let my eyes tell me how I feel -- if I can live peacefully with them,'' said T.C. Williams of Suffolk. The 82-year-old is president of the Rosemont-Lloyd Place Civic League and a member of the NAACP.
``The controversy has come and gone,'' said Pam Goheen, deputy director of public relations for the Department of Motor Vehicles. ``Now we are merely administering the code of Virginia, and, so far, we have had no complaints.''
While some of Virginia's 180 specialty plates are revenue-sharing -- with some of the proceeds benefiting the sponsoring group -- the SCV receives no revenue from its plates.
Brad Bowling, commander of the Virginia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said the special tags are an effective recruiting tool. He's received 15 to 20 calls a day about them and SCV membership.
``As people see how benign the plates are, we are getting more calls,'' he said.
Currently, Virginia's SCV membership stands at about 3,200; international membership is about 30,000.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans, a heritage group founded in 1896 to honor Confederate soldiers, sailors and history, first sought General Assembly approval for the plate in 1999. Opponents argued that the Ku Klux Klan and similar white supremacy groups had used the Confederate battle flag as a symbol of hate and that the flag was racially divisive.
In April, with the support of the Rutherford Institute, an international civil liberties group based in Charlottesville, the Sons of Confederate Veterans won a federal appeals court decision overruling an earlier court decision that banned the flag from the license plates. A U.S. District judge said the refusal to issue the plate violated the SCV's right to free speech.
``It is appropriate to honor the desire of those who want a license plate honoring the Confederacy because it is more divisive to deny it,'' said Diane Snowa of Suffolk, pastor of the Portsmouth Congregational Christian United Church of Christ, a multiracial congregation.
``The bottom line is education and rational responses to an emotional time in our history that continues to ignite.''
Reach Phyllis Speidell at 483-9161 or
pspeidel@pilotonline.com
http://www.pilotonline.com/news/nw0713tag.html
Related thread: Confederate plates win drivers' attention
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