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TEMPLE TERRACE — Bart Siegel, an outspoken advocate for the display of the giant Confederate flag near the intersection of Interstate 4 and I-75, was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot in his Temple Terrace home Thursday. Siegel, 50, was a Republican accountant who penned long letters to newspapers and verbally sparred with columnists. In 2000, he announced his desire to "stir things up" by running against then-Hillsborough Clerk of the Circuit Court Richard Ake, a Democrat unopposed since 1986. Siegel lost, but kept stirring things up. In the face of a protest, Siegel professed his love for the...

TAMPA, FLA. - Chip Witte doesn't consider himself a Rebel. He doesn't hang Dixie battle flags in his living room, nor does he wear one on the back of his leather jacket. Yet when the Tampa motorcycle mechanic saw the world's largest Confederate battle flag unfurl above the intersection of I-75 and I-4 in June, he felt a jolt of solidarity with the lost cause and lost rights that he says the battle flag represents. "I think it's great that they're allowed to fly it," says Mr. Witte. [Editor's note: The original version misidentified the highway intersection.]

Chip Witte doesn't consider himself a Rebel. He doesn't hang Dixie battle flags in his living room, nor does he wear one on the back of his leather jacket. Yet when the Tampa motorcycle mechanic saw the world's largest Confederate battle flag unfurl above the intersection of I-10 and I-4 in June, he felt a jolt of solidarity with the lost cause and lost rights that he says the battle flag represents. "I think it's great that they're allowed to fly it," says Mr. Witte. Despite years of boycotts, schoolyard bans, and banishment from capitol domes, the Southern battle colors...

A woolen flag with cotton stars flew the night Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson caught a bullet in the arm -- a quiet witness to one of history's great accidents. You can see it inside a case on the third floor of the N.C. Museum of History, hanging over a Confederate ammunition chest recovered from a Johnston County farm: the flag carried by the regiment that inadvertently shot the man who was arguably the South's No. 2 general. The museum just bought the flag for a price Curator of Military History Tom Belton would describe only as a bargain. Any price...

Three seniors at Bloomington Kennedy High School will not be allowed to walk in their graduation ceremony after driving to school with confederate flags flying from their trucks. Seventy-five other students showed up at the school Wednesday morning to protest the action taken by the school against Justin Thompson, Joey Snyder and another student. "I figured, you know, we’re seniors, it’s the last day of school…we didn’t mean any offense by it," Thompson said. Added Snyder: "We didn’t look at it as racist or anything." But school officials feel that flying a confederate flag violates the school’s student conduct policy....

At least one of the Bloomington Kennedy High School students suspended Tuesday, June 3, for displaying a Confederate flag had been warned about doing so after an earlier incident. Rick Kaufman, Bloomington Public School's executive director of communications, said three students who participated in the flag display have been suspended and won't be permitted to take part in Kennedy's graduation ceremony tonight, June 4, at Target Center in Minneapolis. At least one of the suspended students had been warned against displaying the flag following a previous incident, said Kaufman. He declined to give details but said the student must have...

Three high school seniors have been barred from Bloomington Kennedy High School's graduation ceremony tonight at Target Center because of what the school district is calling a prank involving Confederate flags. Rick Kaufman, a spokesman for the Bloomington School District, said three male students brought the flags onto school property Tuesday morning. He said they were suspended after "carrying and waving" the flags in the parking lot as parents and students arrived at the school. Bloomington Kennedy senior Kellie Rezac is a friend of the three boys and helped organize a protest outside the school earlier today. Rezac said the...

Ringgold City Council is facing potential legal action based on its 2005 decision to remove the Confederate Battle Flag from the Ringgold Depot Civil War Memorial. The Southern Legal Resource Center notified the city Feb. 11 by letter from SLRC chief trial counsel Kirk D. Lyons that it will face legal action unless it replaces the battle flag within 10 days. According to Roger McCredie, Southern Legal Resource Center executive director, the letter puts the city on notice that its clients, the Georgia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and its local Joseph McConnell Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp...

Have you noticed there are questions liberals are seldom asked that conservatives always are, and vice versa? Democrats are very seldom grilled about their abortion views, while Republicans are required to defend them. And it would appear every four years, Republican presidential candidates are called upon to answer for that South Carolina "solidarity" flag which includes the brand of the confederacy.

The Rev. Al Sharpton released a statement Friday chastising one “John Huckabee” for saying South Carolina should be able to decide whether it wants to fly the Confederate flag. Of course he meant Mike Huckabee — the GOP candidate who on the campaign trail Thursday said outsiders should not tell South Carolina what to do when it comes to that flag. Either way, as the controversy of race settles on the Democratic side, Sharpton said Republican Huckabee is now offending the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. “In the midst of a national celebration of the life and teachings of...

In its anti-McCain ad, an announcer states: "Mitt Romney is trying, but when it comes to bashing the Confederate flag he can't hold a candle to John McCain. McCain's been doing it - calling the flag a racist symbol - for years." Both minute-long spots go on to applaud Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, saying he is more in tune with Southern values.

Some students want the school administration to ban the Confederate battle flag outright, even if its presence is mainly limited at this point to small decals, belt buckles or cell phone screens kept by a small number of students... Senior Megan Allen said she's gotten about 300 of the school's roughly 1,500 students and about 20 teachers to sign her petition calling for school officials to ban the flag on campus,

The Republican presidential candidates on Thursday moved to appeal to different types of conservative voters before the South Carolina primary, with Mike Huckabee using colorful language to declare the Confederate flag a states’ rights issue and Senator John McCain embracing a supply-side tax cut proposal. “You don’t like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag,” Mr. Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, told supporters in Myrtle Beach, according to The Associated Press. “In fact,” he said, “if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we’d...

-- And Hitting McCain A pro-Confederate Flag third-party group is running new radio ads in South Carolina praising Mike Huckabee's pro-state's-rights stance on the flag issue -- and slamming John McCain over his repeated criticism of the controversial symbol. "Mike Huckabee's stand is a breath of fresh air," say the ads, which are paid for by the Americans for the Preservation of American Culture. "Gov. Huckabee understands that all the average guy with a Confederate Flag on his pickup truck is saying is: He's proud to be a Southerner." McCain has been dogged by the flag issue in South Carolina...

The little known holiday is fine with some Tennesseans, but others don't think the government should still officially honor the Confederate Army General.

The president of the western York County NAACP chapter wants a flag that pays homage to the Confederate flag removed from in front of a downtown business...A flag that is half South Carolina state flag and half Confederate flag flying next to the U.S. flag at Exchange Publishers in downtown York.

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (CNN) – Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee criticized the Confederate flag, which happens to be hoisted on the Statehouse grounds in the early primary state of South Carolina. [snip] Both candidates are front-runners in South Carolina. Both may have to answer questions about those comments next time they hit the state. [end]

COCOA BEACH, Fla. -- Students at Cocoa Beach Jr./Sr. High School are waging a war on peace. Recently, sophomore Skylar Stains decided to hold Peace Shirt Thursdays at the school. Skylar and her friend, Lauren Lorraine, started wearing peace shirts and soon recruited more friends to wear them. Now, the "Peace Shirt Coalition" as they call themselves, has close to 30 students from all grades. "We've worn handmade peace shirts every Thursday since the first week of school, without fail," Skylar said. But what started out as a light-hearted gesture soon started to be taken out of context. Students started...

A coffee mug used by Department of Public Safety Commissioner John A. Danaher III showing the Confederate flag in a Civil War battle has angered black leaders who said it was insensitive to display a symbol of hate, particularly when the state police have been under fire for complaints of racism. The issue arose Wednesday night after the NAACP met with members of the Commission on African American Affairs to discuss how to address recent allegations of rampant racism within the state police and state Department of Correction. The African American Affairs Commission is a group of citizens appointed by...

A Confederate flag, in part anyway, is an emblem of slavery and thus racism. If we have not been upset or bothered by the marketing of a racist symbol at the county-owned fairground, perhaps that tells us something about ourselves.

Nearly 150 years after the Civil War ended and approaching a decade after it was moved from the State House dome to a memorial at the intersection of Main and Gervais streets, the Confederate battle flag continues to influence the sporting life of South Carolina.

...he was stunned to see two large Confederate flags flying from trucks...emblazoned with the words "The South Shall Rise Again." I'm stunned, too, that people still think it is cool to fly this flag. Our society should bury these flags -- not flaunt them...because the Confederate flag symbolizes racial tyranny to so many... ...This flag doesn't belong on city streets, in videos or in the middle of civil discussion. It belongs in our past -- in museums and in history books -- along with the ideas it represents.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/fp/flashPollResultsState?pollId=44465

Political considerations color the divergent views of presidential candidates on whether the Confederate flag should be moved from the State House grounds. For Republicans competing in the Feb. 2, 2008, GOP primary, where white voters will hold sway, the flag is a state issue that the candidates are not eager to discuss. On the Democratic side, where half or more of the voters in the Jan. 29, 2008, primary will be black residents, candidates have no qualms about calling for the flag’s removal. “Each side is playing to its basic constituency,” said Blease Graham, a political science professor at USC....

ORANGEBURG, S.C. — Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that South Carolina should remove the Confederate flag from its Statehouse grounds, in part because the nation should unite under one banner while at war.

Clinton Objects to Confederate Flag Feb 19 4:25 PM US/Eastern By JIM DAVENPORT Associated Press Writer ORANGEBURG, S.C. (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that South Carolina should remove the Confederate flag from its Statehouse grounds, in part because the nation should unite under one banner while at war. "I think about how many South Carolinians have served in our military and who are serving today under our flag and I believe that we should have one flag that we all pay honor to, as I know that most people in South Carolina do every single...

Texas students sue to carry purses decorated with Confederate flag By Martha DellerMcClatchy Newspapers(MCT)DALLAS - Two Burleson High School students filed a federal lawsuit Friday against the Burleson school district over a year-old incident in which school officials denied them the right to carry Confederate battle flag purses to school.Attorneys for the Southern Legal Resource Center prepared the lawsuit on behalf of Aubrie Michelle McAllum and Ashley Paige Thomas, who contend their constitutional rights were violated in January 2006 when school officials prevented them from carrying their new purses to school.The teens were not punished for carrying the purses,...

...the Confederate battle flag that flies on the State House grounds should be removed immediately, end of story. It has as much right flying in front of our state capitol as a Nazi flag does flying in front of the modern Reichstag.

AUSTIN — At his inauguration, after being sworn into office by the first black chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court — a man he appointed — Gov. Rick Perry spoke wistfully of a tolerant Texas, where "no one is invalidated because of their heritage, but valued because of their humanity." If you ask critics, the spirit of unity didn't last through the governor's $75-a-ticket inaugural ball, held later Tuesday night at the Austin Convention Center. Rocking the house as the night's final act was singer Ted Nugent, a friend of Perry's known as the "Motor City Madman." Nugent appeared...

AUSTIN - Rocker Ted Nugent said Monday that Gov. Rick Perry wants him to deliver this blunt message to anyone who didn’t like the Confederate flag T-shirt the performer wore at the Republican inaugural ball in Austin last week: “Drop dead.” Perry aides gave a slightly different account, but agreed the two talked and said the governor defended Nugent’s right to wave the Confederate flag and to be controversial. In an extended interview with the Star-Telegram, Nugent said Perry called him over the weekend to express his support for the guitarist and the Confederate symbol that was emblazoned on his...

Family members of a former Brazos County sheriff said Thursday that a Confederate flag displayed at his funeral was not intended to be offensive. The flag prompted the Bryan and College Station police departments to pull officers from honor guard duty before Wednesday's funeral for Bobby Yeager. Members of his family said Yeager, who served as Brazos County sheriff from 1978 to 1984 and was a former detective for the College Station department, asked before his death to have the flag displayed at his funeral.

COLUMBIA, S.C. - An NCAA committee decided Tuesday it will not expand its ban on postseason championships in South Carolina and Mississippi, where Confederate emblems are displayed on Statehouse grounds. The Minority Opportunities and Interests Committee said the NCAA should continue its moratorium on bringing predetermined events, such as NCAA basketball regionals, to the two states. The ban will not be expanded, however, to sites awarded on merit, such as baseball tournament regionals or football playoff games.

BRANDON, Miss. -- A Brandon woman is working to remove what she calls a symbol of Mississippi's history of racism. The arrest of 71-year-old James Seale on Wednesday in connection with the 1964 kidnappings of two black teenagers grabbed national headlines, serving to some writers as a sign that Mississippi is making amends with a racist past. But Darlene Collier, founder of the Flag Has Got To Go, said Mississippians are too eager to hang on to symbols of that past. Collier created and started selling T-shirts urging people to take down Confederate flags shortly after a 2001 vote failed...

Columbia, S.C. -- Sen. Joseph Biden, a Democratic presidential hopeful joining fellow Sen. Christopher Dodd at Martin Luther King Jr. holiday events, said Monday he thinks the Confederate flag should be kept off South Carolina's Statehouse grounds. "If I were a state legislator, I'd vote for it to move off the grounds — out of the state," the Delaware senator said before the civil rights group held a march and rally at the Statehouse here to support its boycott of the state. In Chicago, Sen. Barack Obama, also prominently mentioned in speculation about the White House sweepstakes in 2008, was...

The principal at a Fayette County middle school has banned all clothing with the confederate flag emblem...

Marion County teen defies ban on Confederate flag clothing By CHRISTOPHER CURRY Ocala Star-Banner October 05. 2006 6:01AM OCALA - A student at North Marion High School is opposing a ban on clothing that displays the Confederate battle flag. On Monday, sophomore April Brenay, 15, began to circulate a petition among students urging that the school do away with the dress code policy banning clothing with the Confederate flag. On Wednesday, Brenay wore a Dixie Outfitters-brand shirt with a Confederate flag on the back and the message: "If this flag offends you, you need a history lesson." Brenay said school...

Some 200 protesters demonstrated before a Louisiana State University football game against the purple-and-gold Confederate-style flags flown during sporting events. "We see those flags as weapons of mass division on this campus and we take the issue very seriously," said Alicia Calvin, LSU chapter president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and one of the protest organizers. "This flag is obscene because African Americans have been terrorized throughout history by it. Anything deemed offensive can be banned from our institution." The protest took place Oct. 22 before an LSU-Auburn University game. Calvin said the flag, displayed...

BATON ROUGE, La. -- The flag blends a symbol of the Confederacy with the school colors of Louisiana State University, a combination that provokes anger from blacks and creates headaches for the university. Black students held a string of game-day protests last year -- the largest attracting several hundred participants -- to demand that the school prohibit fans on campus from flying the banner, a Confederate-style flag in the purple and gold of the LSU Fighting Tigers. The protests resulted in a few scuffles and a lot of attention in the news media -- but no ban on the flag....

The group Sons of Confederate Veterans met at Orlando's Lake Eola Park to show off their proposed personalized tag late Friday morning. They said it's simply a matter of time before the plate becomes one of the many you can purchase as a specialty license plate. The group said the plate honors Florida's heritage by showing all five flags of the confederate army, including their battle flag. But it's a heritage some say simply represents hate. Standing below the memorial for confederate soldiers, a small but vocal group made their point Friday. They want Floridians to learn that the Civil...

The NCAA will consider expanding its ban of championship events in South Carolina, possibly disallowing baseball and football teams from playing host to postseason games, because the Confederate flag is displayed on Statehouse grounds. Robert Vowels Jr., head of the NCAA's Minority Opportunities and Interest Committee, said his group received a request from the Black Coaches Association about widening the ban. Predetermined postseason events, such as basketball regionals and cross-country championships, are now barred from South Carolina sites.

The NCAA will consider expanding its ban of championship events in South Carolina, possibly disallowing baseball and football teams from hosting postseason games, because the Confederate flag is displayed on Statehouse grounds.

There is a time and place for everything, and that time and place has come for the state of South Carolina...to furl the (Confederate) flag (beside the Confederate Memorial on the State House) and put it in a museum where it belongs.

Unless lawmakers remove the Confederate flag from the State House grounds, the road to the College World Series could become longer for Clemson, South Carolina and the state’s other schools. An NCAA subcommittee is re-examining the flag issue after the head of the Black Coaches Association questioned why Clemson hosted regional and super regional games before advancing to Omaha this past season. In 2002 the NCAA implemented a two-year moratorium prohibiting schools in South Carolina from hosting any pre-assigned championships. A year later the NCAA extended the ban indefinitely. Now BCA executive director Floyd Keith wants college athletics’ chief governing...

Last month, Ithaca High School administrators sent a letter home with students, informing their parents that the flag of the Confederacy had been banned. Ithaca High School students can no longer display the emblem on belt buckles, t-shirts, or anywhere else while on school property. Apparently, the students wearing their Dixie Outfitters t-shirts, in a proud nod to our country’s better half, were white. It is unfortunate that civil liberties apply only to those in privileged groups, such as blacks or Hispanics.Because the United States Supreme Court has ruled in favor of protecting the freedom of speech exercised in displaying...

LATTA, S.C. - A 15-year-old girl led a small protest march Monday over her high school's ban on Confederate flag clothing, which she is also challenging in court. Candice Hardwick walked with about a dozen people, about half of them family members and some wearing Confederate T-shirts, a few blocks to Latta High School. Hardwick wore a Confederate belt buckle and button and had the Confederate flag on her cell phone cover. She removed those items before entering the school, where she is a sophomore. Hardwick says she wants to wear the emblem to pay tribute to ancestors who fought...

On a weekend pilgrimage to this town that was once the center of massive resistance to desegregation, Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) said he believes a congressional resolution expressing remorse for slavery would be a "powerful, worthy" idea. Allen, who is running for reelection while considering a 2008 presidential bid, was in Farmville over the weekend as part of a racial reconciliation trip organized by the bipartisan Faith and Politics Institute. Also participating in the pilgrimage was Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a leader in the civil rights movement. Allen pledged to work with Lewis to build support among colleagues and the...

Sen. George Allen, who has tried to reach out to minority voters in recent years, wore a Confederate flag pin on his shirt collar in a high-school yearbook photo, a national magazine reported yesterday. As a high school student in Palos Verdes, Calif., Allen was seen riding in or driving a Ford Mustang with either a Confederate flag license plate or Confederate flag imagery on the car, The New Republic quoted witnesses as saying. The Virginia Republican, seeking re-election now and weighing a presidential bid in 2008, was to depart today to co-host a civil-rights history tour for members of...

Pontiac, SC - It has been announced in local media (Columbia, SC) that the John Deere plant in Pontiac, SC, is being shut down. The plant has been subject to twice weekly protests by Southern heritage supporters since October, 2000. The protests, organized by Dean Weems, were the result of John Deere management firing two employees due to their love of their heritage. Bill Van Der Hoff, a mechanic, was fired for refusing to remove a 1 1/2 by 1 1/2 inch Confederate Battle flag sticker from his personally owned tool box. Another employee, Gary Waller, was fired for the ...

What else should we ban from public view other than the Confederate battle flag? Should we ban the Stars and Stripes? After all, it flew from the fantail of slave-carrying ships owned in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Old Glory is the official flag not only of the United States, but also of the Ku Klux Klan. Look at photos of the largest Klan march in history, in Washington in 1925. The only flag you see the Klansmen carrying is the United States flag. Not a single one of them is carrying the Confederate battle flag....

Two Hickman High School students disrupted a multicultural assembly yesterday in the school’s auditorium by unfurling a Confederate flag from the balcony. Ryan Lanman, 17, who is white, and a friend enacted their plan while another student was singing "The Yellow Rose of Texas" to commemorate the Spanish-American War and honor Texas. After the disruption, the students involved were told to leave, and the assembly continued, Principal Mike Jeffers said, adding that he couldn’t talk about whether the students would be disciplined. Lanman, reached by phone after the assembly yesterday afternoon, said he and fellow student Kevin Meyers meant to...