No action by Lenoir County Commissioners about flying Confederate flag

Or the flag that flew, despairingly as it turned out, over Fort Sumter in 1861 until it was captured and replaced, undoubtedly by the very flag that’s now the focus of so much debate.

I’m glad it was taken down after a more than half-century long run – because it never should have been there. The person displaying that flag, in my mind, is a racist. I’m on record as defending the rights of young white teenagers to be able to wear the flag on T-shirts to school – which they were prohibited from doing in some area schools years ago. To defend the flag as exclusively a commemoration of Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War denies basic truths. And I put that flag on the cover of my first book because, for good or for ill, that flag will forever have a place in the souls of black folk in the South.

Democrats were outraged and delivered blistering indictments of Republicans’ defense of the flag and what they called a shady move made in the “dark of night”.

“The next thing you know, we had people from North Carolina and all over Virginia coming”, Burton said. The white man accused of the mass killing embraced the flag.

“What I told the commission is that we do not represent hate”. It’s disgusting.

He believes the confederate flag is not unlike the symbol of the swastika, originally a sacred symbol of peace and good fortune for Hinduism, Buddhism and other Eastern religions, that is now correlated with the horrors of the Holocaust and Adolf Hitler’s reign over Germany. Edgerton felt compelled to give them something. That does not mean, however, that we are a theocracy-a nation officially governed first and foremost by a religious creed. Your individual liberty to speak, unconstrained by government, is at the heart of both the First Amendment and our American tradition of protest and freedom.

A Massachusetts man said: “It has nothing to do with racism”. Others were willing, akin to hostages sympathizing with captors.

I joined the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance but declined the invitation to sing Dixie and stood silent during the pledge to the Confederacy. Promoting historical accuracy and effectively dodging ridicule thus far, Sharon Parker, a Six Flags spokeswoman noted, “We do not fly or sell any variation of the Confederate Battle Flag.”

“It wasn’t about “this is a black neighborhood” or ‘this is a white neighborhood, ‘” she added.

“Hollywood don’t talk about that”, he said.

You are part of the United States of America. And that’s the flaw with Edgerton and some Southern heritage groups.

The historic moment took place after weeks of protest and intense pressure on lawmakers that also sparked debates in other states where the flag is still revered as a symbol of the Civil War and Southern pride. The court held that the meaning of the flag, be it a representation of southern heritage or of white supremacy, depended upon one’s perspective and the court was not prepared to say either was incorrect. Those stars are lined up right next to the ones that signify the Union states, as well as all the states that came after the Civil War. That’s why it’s important to set the record straight.

“It just blew me away when I was driving out on Sunday, and we’re all in the auto, I was like ‘Oh my gosh, is that what I think it is?’ “.

“History does not often proffer us the neat lessons we demand of it”, author K. Michael Prince wrote.

During the public comment portion of the county commission meeting, those in support and those in opposition of the tradition expressed their opinion.