NAACP wages new effort to bring down Confederate flag

CSA Battle Flag image from The Palmetto Scoop.

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My first confederate flag thread is here, in which I said all I am going to say (too much, as usual). The NAACP's new campaign against the flag starts on October 2nd.

NAACP wages new effort to bring down Confederate flag

Governor says he won’t get involved

By Tim Smith • STAFF WRITER, Greenville News
September 23, 2008

COLUMBIA -- The South Carolina and North Carolina chapters of the NAACP called the Confederate flag that flies on Statehouse grounds here a symbol of evil and terrorism and said Monday they will join in their efforts to remove it.

“As long as this flag blows, it pushes a foul wind of separatism, division and racism that is not contained by the borders of South Carolina,” said the Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP. The two chapters of the organization used the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation to announce new efforts.

North Carolina’s NAACP plans to fight any cooperation between that state and South Carolina in film projects until the flag is removed, Barber said.

Dr. Lonnie Randolph, president of the South Carolina NAACP, said press conferences supporting a boycott of South Carolina were held simultaneously in seven southeastern states.

“This is not a South Carolina issue,” he said. “This is a national issue.”

The battle flag was moved to its current location near the Confederate Soldiers Memorial on the north side of the Statehouse in 2000 as a result of a legislative compromise to take it off the Statehouse dome. The NAACP has protested its location ever since and organized a tourism and travel boycott of the state.

On Monday, Gov. Mark Sanford repeated his previously stated reluctance to get involved in the flag fight.

“That would consume the two years I have left, and I have to stay focused on the things that I originally made pledges to voters on,” he said.

This summer, Randolph revealed the civil rights organization was working with some officials in Hollywood to keep film projects from locating in the state as part of the NAACP’s campaign.

Randolph said Monday that he couldn’t yet disclose who in Hollywood is assisting the NAACP but said the organization planned to announce some “high-profile names” in time for the NAACP’s 100th anniversary early next year.

Both men said they are also working to block collaborative agreements between the two state’s film offices.

“We don’t believe our film industry in North Carolina ought to be doing collaborative work with South Carolina until such time as this flag is removed,” Barber said.

Barber said the battle flag is wrong morally “because it supported the evils of slavery.”

“We wouldn’t allow al-Qaida to fly their flag,” he said. “We wouldn’t allow the Bloods and the Crips to fly their flag. We wouldn’t allow another country to fly its flag. We should not allow that which represents terrorism and secession to be flown.”

Randolph said little progress has been made in the Statehouse on the issue but said change that benefits blacks in the state rarely occurs except as a result of war, constitutional changes, an executive order or the death of someone.

“The Klansmen don’t wear white sheets anymore,” he said. “They wear three-piece suits and carry briefcases. But they do the same damage that they used to.”

Randolph said the state’s 67th annual convention will be held in Charlotte, beginning Oct. 2, the eighth year the NAACP in South Carolina has moved out of state for its convention to observe the flag boycott.

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Still fighting over THAT flag...

Left: Yes, you know what it is. (Image from The Palmetto Scoop.)

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For foreign readers (and Americans who didn't memorize their history lessons): South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union in 1860. Largely for this reason, Union forces fired on Fort Sumter, which is considered the official beginning of the Civil War. Yes, it all started here!!!!

How to honor such history respectfully, is the question.

It seems we still can't agree on that.

Although the CSA battle flag is on South Carolina statehouse grounds, it is no longer in the front and is displayed as part of a memorial to the deceased CSA soldiers. No one objects to the memorial itself (that I know of); it's the flag that raises objections and gets everyone all stirred up.

From the Greenville News today:

Confederate group plans response to flag flap

Organization denies comments about flying more flags to counter NAACP

By Tim Smith • CAPITAL BUREAU • July 17, 2008

COLUMBIA -- The Sons of Confederate Veterans plans a response to the NAACP's push to remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse grounds but denied Wednesday one of its officers' statements that it would fly flags around the state in reaction.

Meanwhile, in response to questions by The Greenville News on Wednesday about whether he supported moving the flag, a spokesman for the presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. John McCain said the issue of the flag has already been resolved.

"Sen. McCain has said repeatedly that he could not be more proud of the overwhelming majority of the people of South Carolina who have come together to resolve the issue," said Mario Diaz, a spokesman for the campaign.

A spokesman for the presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama couldn't be reached for comment.

State NAACP President Lonnie Randolph said Tuesday the national organization had asked actors and movie studio representatives to observe the NAACP's economic sanctions against the state until the flag is moved off Statehouse grounds. He said the civil rights organization had received "very positive" responses.

The battle flag flies behind the Confederate soldiers' monument near a busy Columbia intersection, the result of a legislative compromise in 2000 to bring the flag off the Statehouse dome.

Randy Burbage, who leads South Carolina members in the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said the group's officials will consider proposed responses to the NAACP actions when they meet in two weeks.

"We're weighing different options," he said. "We always respond to attacks on our heritage, and we feel like that's what this is."

He said he was "not at liberty" to describe what was being considered, but he denied the comments of another officer earlier in the day who said the organization planned to raise flags across the state in response to the NAACP's latest campaign to remove the flag.

"That's not true," he said. "He misspoke on that. There's no plan to do that. I'm puzzled as to why he even said that. He's not the spokesman for the organization. I've already spoken to him today, and he admitted that he misspoke on that."

Burbage said it was also untrue that the organization planned to raise a flag each time the NAACP complained or that the organization was negotiating with a landowner to raise a giant flag near a Midlands interstate, just as supporters have raised such flags in Florida.

"I don't know how I can put these fires out at this point," he said. "That's him speaking for himself, not this organization."

My observation? It never ends.

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