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MEMPHIS, TN - (WMC-TV) – A Mid-South teen is banned from prom for wearing a dress that resembles a confederate battle flag. "It wasn't done to offend anybody," Texanna Edwards explained of her dress. "It was done just for the sole fact that I just wanted a rebel flag dress because I thought it was cool." But the principal at Gibson High in West Tennessee did not think it was cool.  Edwards, a senior at the school, tried to wear the dress that she helped design to the prom Saturday night.  She also wore a rebel flag necklace. "He told...

Given the abundance of options at the network, it's saying something to name Martin Bashir as the most noisome of MSNBC hosts. But so he is, in my book. Witness the low stunt Bashir pulled to open his show today, on the afternoon of the South Carolina primary. Bashir superimposed photos of the Republican candidates in front of a Confederate flag image. Lest their be any doubt as to the message Bashir meant to send, the screen graphic read "Rebel Yell." Oh those racist Republicans. View the video here.

"A black U.S. college student who drew complaints for displaying a Confederate flag in his dorm room window said he sees the banne as a symbol of pride and not racism."

EAST WINDSOR, N.J. (CBSNewYork) — A 14-year-old New Jersey girl has been suspended for wearing a sweatshirt with a Confederate flag on it. Many see it as a symbol of hate and racism, but this teenager claims its part of her heritage, reports CBS 2’s Christine Sloan. Torri Albrecht said Monday when she showed up to her middle school wearing a sweatshirt with the confederate flag. She said her vice principal gave her a choice: “He said I had to take off the sweatshirt or flip it inside out or face the consequences,” Albrecht said. But the eighth grader, who...

DOWAGIAC, Mich. – Classrooms were noticeably empty at Union High School on Thursday. It’s been almost a week since administrators banned students from wearing anything with the confederate flag. Since then, things at the school have been tense, “It’s been really hectic, pretty awkward,” Brittany Williams said. Thursday was a half day for students, Williams and her friend spent the day downtown trying to escape the controversy at the high school. “They need to stop, they’re doing it on purpose just to agitate people,” Williams said. To her, it’s not just the Confederate flag she finds offensive, it’s the students...

DOWAGIAC, Mich. -- School officials at Dowagiac Union High School have banned students from wearing the Confederate flag. Now students are fighting back! There has been outrage, hurt feelings, and death threats after a student was suspended last Friday for wearing a belt buckle with the Confederate flag on it. On Monday, a handful of students wore Confederate flag T-shirts in retaliation, and they too were suspended. On Wednesday, dozens of students went to school in protest, wearing T-shirts with a Confederate flag on them. The students either left school on their own, or were sent home for fighting back...

When you see a Confederate flag, what does it mean to you? Symbol of Southern culture Symbol of enslavement and bigotry Memorial to fallen soldiers None of the above

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) -- An Oregon school bus driver fired after he refused to remove a Confederate battle flag flying from his pickup truck has enlisted the help of a conservative civil liberties group in hopes of getting his job back. The Rutherford Institute of Charlottesville, Va., sent a letter Wednesday to First Student Bus Transportation Services demanding that Ken Webber of Medford, Ore., be reinstated.

In one of the most interesting “What the hayell” moments in recent memory, the NAACP Detroit branch has announced that they plan to give singer Kid Rock an award at their annual Great Expectations Dinner, which typically draws 10,000 participants. The dinner is going to be held on May 1, and if recent protests are an indicator, there won’t be 10,000 people in the audience ready to celebrate. The reason that people are up in arms is because Kid Rock has often used the Confederate Flag as part of his routine on stage. The singer has argued that the flag...

<p>MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) - An Oregon school bus driver has been suspended for refusing to remove a Confederate flag from his personal vehicle.</p> <p>The Mail Tribune reports that 28-year-old Ken Webber of Medford said he's worked four years for First Student School Bus Transportation Services, a contractor for the Phoenix-Talent School District in the Medford area.</p>

OAKWOOD, Ga. (AP) -- A college president in Georgia says she ordered an instructor's painting that featured a Confederate flag removed from a faculty art exhibit. The Athens Banner-Herald reports the flag was superimposed on images including a hanged black man and a hooded Ku Klux Klansman.

KNOXVILLE - A federal appeals court has upheld a district court's ruling that a school's ban on Confederate clothing was a reasonable attempt to prevent disruptions. Tommy Defoe sued Anderson County school officials after he was sent home and then suspended for insubordination in 2006 for wearing a T-shirt and a belt buckle bearing the image of the Confederate battle flag. He said he wanted to display his pride in his Southern heritage. In court filings, he claimed school officials violated his First Amendment rights.

WALPOLE, Mass. -- The Confederate flag is at the center of a growing controversy in Walpole. The Confederate flag, considered by many to stand for the Old South’s fight for slavery, was the symbol of Walpole sports teams for decades. The football team is still known as the Walpole High School Rebels The Walpole School board voted in 1994 to do away with the divisive symbol after a 25-year run. “I don’t really like it. I think it should go down,” said Marven Jensimon, who opposes the flag. Yet the flag is still being displayed on private property right next...

A new movie theater in Fredericksburg is removing a Confederate flag from a mural after it received complaints. The Muvico theater includes a Civil-War themed bar and the mural is painted on a wall of an outside seating area. The mural depicts a U.S. flag on one side, a Confederate flag on the other, and has stars, an eagle and other adornments.

NRK (Norwegian National Broadcasting)Party in Strömstad UnderwayThe annual Easter break pilgrimage of thousands of young Norwegians to the Swedish border city is in full swing, with thousands descending upon their neighbors, attracted by cheaper alcohol and the party atmosphere. As in years past, scores have ended up in Swedish jail.

Paul Schupska knows his history. Over the years, his vast collections of baseball, World War I and II and antique toys have been displayed at community public libraries throughout the area. Whether it is a vintage GI Joe or an authentic World War II map used by Allied forces in a European bunker, Schupska prides himself on the completeness of his displays, on telling as much of a complete history as possible. When he recently showcased his World War II collection at the Pasadena Public Library on Fairmont, the Nazi insignias were part of that story. He has shown several...

Does the Confederate Flag offend you? http://www.sodahead.com/question/537677/does-the-confederate-flag-offend-you/ I came across this question asked at SodaHead.com that has produced a lively discussion with over 2500 comments. I thought I would post it here at Free Republic and see if it gets a similiar response.

Monday, July 13th, in the year of our Lord 2009, is the 188th birthday of American legend and Southern Hero--Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest.

CLEMSON — The ACC has halted its plans to hold its conference baseball tournament in Myrtle Beach, citing failure to reach an agreement on the Confederate flag issue. In May, the ACC awarded the event to Myrtle Beach for 2011-13, expressing a willingness to look past the NCAA’s ban of predetermined championship events being contested in the state. On Monday, the league announced it had given the event to Durham, N.C. (for 2011, 2013) and Greensboro, N.C. (for 2012), confirming a report by The State that its plans had changed. Clemson coach Jack Leggett - Mary Ann Chastain /AP Do...

CUMBERLAND, Md. — A dispute has erupted in Cumberland over the distribution of a brochure that purports to explain the history of the Confederate battle flag in Allegany County public schools.

Should the U.S. keep a closer watch on white supremacists? Yes No Poll is in reference to an article about flying the Confederate Flag at taxpayer-funded events.

Civil rights groups on Thursday put city and business leaders here on a 30-day notice that unless they meet a list of demands – including a ban on the display of the Confederate flag at taxpayer-funded events – they will be subjected to protests and boycotts.

HOMESTEAD—The Miami-Dade branch of the NAACP has set its sights on NASCAR, Homestead’s major national attraction, in its fight against the Confederate Flag. The civil rights organization will first reach out to officials with the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, seeking to enlist their help in efforts to ban the controversial symbol from city-sponsored events. If that does not work, however, NAACP officials say they will consider a boycott and protest march at the NASCAR events slated for Nov. 20-22 at the Homestead-Miami Motor Speedway. NAACP officials on Wednesday said they are drafting a letter to NASCAR Chairman...

A federal appeals court ruled that a Missouri school district had the right to suspend a student who wore a cap depicting a Confederate flag. The ruling Friday by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis said schools may restrict First Amendment rights "in certain limited circumstances." It affirms a lower court ruling from 2007. Bryce Archambo was 14 when he was suspended from Farmington High School in September 2006, after wearing a baseball cap depicting the Confederate flag with the words, "C.S.A. Rebel Pride, 1861." The district said the flag was associated with racism and feared...

MARYSVILLE, Wash. - At least three students were suspended from Marysville-Pilchuck High School after displaying the Confederate flag. Ray Hauser, spokesperson for the school district, said one incident occurred in October, and another just last week. The students say the flag is a symbol of culture and heritage, but the school district says it's also a symbol of hatred. Hauser said the students are aware of school policy, and when the administration learned of the displays, the students were called in for a discussion and suspensions occurred immediately. Eighteen-year-old Ethian Allen is a senior at the school. Over the past...

A few weeks ago, as I was walking across the campus of UNC-Wilmington, I heard an old familiar sound. A rap song was blaring from the general vicinity of the university amphitheater. I heard the n-word broadcast loudly (from over 100 yards away) so I decided to walk over to investigate the source of the racial epithet.

The leader of the state NAACP said Monday that the group's boycott of South Carolina over the Confederate flag on statehouse grounds is gaining traction in Hollywood, but Lonnie Randolph declined Monday to name drop, saying an announcement would come in January. Using its offices in Hollywood, Baltimore and South Carolina, leaders of the civil rights group have been aggressively courting actors and film executives since calls for a renewed economic sanction was announced during the NAACP's national convention in July. The new plan calls for asking actors and movie studios to shun the state's efforts to lure film makers....

CLINTON, Tenn. — Likening the case to the racial discord of the mid- to late 1950s in Anderson County, county school officials on Thursday night said this week's U.S. federal court hearing over a student's right to wear the Confederate flag symbol is being funded "by outside sources." "Regardless of what you read there's a lot more to it than our enforcement of our dress code," John Burrell, Anderson County Board of Education chairman, said during the county school board's regular monthly meeting. At the meeting's start, Anderson County school board members spent approximately 20 minutes in an executive session...

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.]

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...

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...

In Minnesota, three government high school seniors were suspended and banned from graduation ceremonies for a prank involving Confederate flags. The principal says they were suspended for violating the school district's anti-discrimination rules. The Bloomington Kennedy High School says that three male students brought the flags onto school property. They were apparently suspended after "carrying and waving" the flags in the parking lot as parents and students arrived at school. Something tells me there is more to this story. Ok, here we have a government school that has suspended some students for bringing a freaking flag on school grounds. There...

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...

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. (WCCO) ― Flying the Confederate flag has long been controversial in Southern states but now it's causing a heated debate at Kennedy High School in Bloomington, Minn. Three seniors who displayed the flag will not be allowed to attend their graduation ceremony Wednesday evening. "It was sitting like that in the parking lot," said Justin Thompson, as he held a Confederate flag that was hanging from a pole inside a pick-up truck bed. On Tuesday, three seniors, each with a rebel flag on the back of their pick-ups, parked at Kennedy High School. "I'm just a country type...

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...

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....

TAMPA, Fla. -- A giant Confederate battle flag -- believed to be the world's largest -- may soon be flying near a Tampa highway intersection. A Confederate heritage group called the Sons of Confederate Veterans plans to fly the flag that measures 30 feet tall and 50 feet wide. The group said it expects to have its flag in place by 2009. "I'm surprised that they would allow something like this to go on in Hillsborough County," county NAACP President Curtis Stokes told the St. Petersburg Times. The group has building permits but still needs $30,000 to complete the project,...

TAMPA — Next year, a giant Confederate flag may tower above the tree line near the junction of Interstate 75 and Interstate 4. The Sons of Confederate Veterans wants drivers in the Tampa area to see the massive flag — 30 feet high and 50 feet long — atop a 139-foot pole, the highest the Federal Aviation Authority would allow. It would be lit at night. With the pole already in the ground and building permits in hand, the group is on its way to having what it calls the "world's largest" Confederate flag in place by mid 2009. The...

Does the Confederate battle flag represent heritage or hatred? The answer is yes. It represents a heritage that included hatred.

They will tell you the Civil War was not about slavery. Remind them that the president and vice president of the so-called "Confederate States of America" both said it was. They will tell you that great-great grandpa Zeke fought for the South, and he never owned any slaves. Remind them that it is political leaders - not grunts - who decide whether and why a war is waged. They will tell you the flag just celebrates heritage. Remind them that "heritage" is not a synonym for "good." After all, Nazis have a heritage, too.

The controversial stars and bars of the Confederate Flag could soon find their way to Florida license plates. State Rep. Don Brown, R-DeFuniak Springs, has worked with the Sons of Confederate Veterans to sponsor a bill that would allow the group to create a non-profit license plate that bears the Dixie flag. The tag would cost roughly $25 from the Department of Motor Vehicles. SCV Executive Director Ben Sewell said his organization has been successful in the past at getting the license plates in numerous states and feels they’ve met the requirements in the state of Florida to acquire 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...

In what was an apparent attempt to woo conservative votes in South Carolina, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee began speaking today about the state's flag. At an event in Myrtle Beach on Thursday Huckabee told supporters gathered in an airplane hangar, "You don't want anyone from out of state comin' down and telling you what to do with your flag. In fact, if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag we'd tell them where to put the pole." The comment seemed to refer to the fact that for years the Confederate flag flew over...

-- 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...

MYRTLE BEACH, South Carolina (CNN) – Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee told South Carolina voters Thursday that the government had no business making decisions over the Confederate flag.