Mississippi authorities probe crash that killed Confederate flag advocate

Barnum said they were in her SUV, which was not displaying any Confederate flags or stickers.

Anthony Hervey, 49, the author of “Why I wave the Confederate Flag: Written by a Black Man”, died on Sunday while returning home to Oxford, Mississippi, from a Confederate flag rally in Alabama, broadcaster WMCA reported.

The Associated Press reports that Hervey was driving a Ford Explorer Sunday when it ran off a Mississippi highway and overturned.

Arlene Barnum, who was travelling with Harvey, told The Associated Press that he swerved and crashed after another vehicle carrying four or five young black men pulled up alongside them, shouting and looking raging. Barnum said Hervey yelled something back at the other vehicle before losing control and crashing. Hervey had argued that Confederate flag was a part of the south’s history and heritage.

The accident is still under investigation, and she is recovering at a Mississippi hospital.

In this May 8, 2000 photograph, Anthony Hervey holds a Confederate flag while standing underneath the Confederate monument in Oxford, Miss.

The car Hervey was driving was not decorated with Rebel propaganda of any kind that would have tipped off the attackers to their identities.

Hervey was knocked unconscious and Barnum used her smartphone to call for help. The article quotes attorney Ginger Barbee, who represents the rally’s sponsor, as saying, “I want the Birmingham Parks and Recreations board to know that they are ultimately responsible for this tragedy”. “They have the right to wave that flag – and it’s my moral duty to stand up and say it”. The New York Daily News reports that his rallies forced the University of Mississippi to loosen free speech restrictions.

“[In this book, ] I show that the Civil War was not fought over slavery and that the demise of my race in America is not of the White man, but rather of our own making”, Hervey wrote.

“This book is about truth and passion”, the introductory description in Hervey’s book reads.

Hervey, the deceased, was a known Confederate flag supporter who actually spoke at the rally that the duo had just left. It was a shock and pain when I learned he’d been killed.