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he national NAACP has again said it will step up a campaign against South Carolina for flying the Confederate flag at the State House. The organization declared it would exert continued pressure to discourage NCAA sporting events and film production in South Carolina.“This is unfinished business,” said Lonnie Randolph, state NAACP president, echoing the message delivered Monday by NAACP interim president and CEO Dennis Hayes, at the organization’s 99th national convention in Cincinnati. Hayes told the Associated Press the organization is still working on its plan to discourage tourism and film production in the state. The National Association for the...

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...

I told myself I'd limit myself to one vanity post per several hundred comments and threads I'd posted, so I apologize in advance. Currently, I'm doing some summer reading and I'm looking specifically for books on the Civil War/War Between the States--or the "War of Northern Agression" if you're so inclined. While I am for certain that this topic could fill up my living room and perhaps my grandparents' entire house, I'm looking for anything that those of you who argue back and forth on the Civil War threads have read. Thanks in advance.

RICHMOND — The American Civil War Center is weighing a $100,000 gift to its interactive Richmond education center. The gift is a bronze likeness of Confederate President Jefferson Davis being cast by Lexington sculptor Gary Casteel. The offer comes from the Sons of Confederate Veterans. A spokesman for the Southern heritage group says the statue is a fitting tribute to the only president of the Confederate States of America in the city that was the capital of the Confederacy. Brag Bowling says it would complement a statue of Abraham Lincoln, which was installed at the National Park grounds five years...

The Sons of Confederate Veterans say they will permanently install a giant Confederate flag near the junction of Interstates 4 and 75 to counter what they consider increasing slights to Southern heritage. But the group, founded 112 years ago to protect all that is noble about the South, is itself racked by angry divisions. Since the 1990s, clusters of Sons members have aligned themselves with "heritage groups" like the League of the South and the Council of Conservative Citizens, both considered hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The law center says the Sons may have been taken over...

Barack Obama’s vice presidential vetting team will undoubtedly run across some quirky and potentially troublesome issues as it goes about the business of scouring the backgrounds of possible running mates. But it’s unlikely they’ll find one so curious as Virginia Democratic Sen. Jim Webb’s affinity for the cause of the Confederacy.

Views on Confederacy may cost Webb VP nod By DAVID MARK | 6/10/08 6:35 PM EST Text Size: Jim Webb Webb, a descendent of Confederate officers, also voiced sympathy for the notion of state sovereignty as it was understood in the early 1860s. Photo: John Shinkle Barack Obama’s vice presidential vetting team will undoubtedly run across some quirky and potentially troublesome issues as they go about the business of scouring the backgrounds of possible running mates. But it’s unlikely they’ll find one so curious as Virginia Democratic Sen. Jim Webb’s affinity for the cause of the Confederacy. Webb is no...

One of the most disconcerting aspects of liberal bigots is their insatiable appetite for tearing down anything American in order to build up anti-American sentiment. The issue over the Confederate flag is an excellent example. Most liberals have nothing but contempt for one of the most lasting and cherished symbols of the South; preferring to label those who revere the Confederate flag as red-necked racists and hate mongers. To most liberals, diversity is a terrific concept, except when it spawns tolerance for ideas and practices the left opposes. Amazingly enough, those same self-righteous liberals who are so anxious to disembowel...

Two controversies involving schools, kids and flags have made recent news in Minnesota. But the cases had radically different outcomes. The first occurred in May at Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton Junior High. Four eighth-graders refused to stand while the rest of their class recited the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag. The kids got one-day, in-school suspensions. But school officials lifted the suspensions immediately after the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota fired off a letter pronouncing that the First Amendment protected the students' conduct. The ACLU's letter warned of dark consequences for school officials who had violated the eighth-graders' free-expression rights....

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...

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....

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...

I've been doing some genealogical research and have traced a couple branches of my family through the Civil War, the Texas War of Independence, and the Revolutionary War. I've also been given the opportunity via some co-workers to join the Sons of the Republic of Texas. I've checked into it, but have also found other historical societies such as the Sons of the Confederacy, and the Sons of the American Revolution. Does anyone out there have any info on these groups as to what it's like to be involved in these groups, and which ones are worth joining?

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...

This Day In Civil War History May 24th 1861: - Union soldiers occupy Alexandria and Arlington Heights in Virginia. During the day Col. Elmer Ellsworth of the 11th New York takes down a Confederate flag flying from atop the Marshall House Inn. As he proceeds down the stairs he is killed by innkeeper James Jackson who almost immediately thereafter is killed. Ellsworth is the first Union officer killed in the war and becomes a martyr in the north. 1862: - Confederate forces under Gen. Thomas Jackson assault the rear guard of Union Gen. Nathaniel Banks retreating army at Middletown...

NEW ORLEANS (May 14) - A steamship that sank off the Louisiana coast during an 1846 storm has produced a trove of rare gold coins, including some produced at two largely forgotten U.S. Mints in the South, coin experts say. Last year, four Louisiana residents salvaged hundreds of gold coins and thousands of silver coins from the wreckage of the SS New York in about 60 feet of water in the Gulf of Mexico, said David Bowers, co-chairman of New York-based Stack's Rare Coins. "Some of these are in uncirculated or mint condition," Bowers said, predicting the best could bring...

WASHINGTON, May 14, 2008 – Through three military conflicts, beginning with the Civil War, a group of women contributed to the war effort by making bandages for the troops. While they no longer make bandages, the Virginia-based United Daughters of the Confederacy strives to support the country’s servicemembers through historical, educational, benevolent, memorial and patriotic means. “Since we are a country at war against terrorism, the patriotic objective is the one being focused upon at the present time,” said Sherry Davis, chairman of patriotic activities for the general, or national, organization. The organization meets its goals of patriotic outreach...

May 5, 2008: The U.S. Civil War continues to kill. Sam White, a Virginia based collector of Civil War munitions, died recently while cleaning up a nine inch, 75 pound, cannon ball. White had previously restored or examined over 1,500 of these shells. But the one that killed him was different. It was fired from a ship board gun, and was designed to be more waterproof than shells used by land based artillery. This kept the fuze, and black powder explosive charge, dry and viable after 150 years. Mister White was using metal tools to clean up the shell, which...

CHESTER, Va. (May 2) - Like many boys in the South, Sam White got hooked on the Civil War early, digging up rusting bullets and military buttons in the battle-scarred earth of his hometown As an adult, he crisscrossed the Virginia countryside in search of wartime relics -- weapons, battle flags, even artillery shells buried in the red clay. He sometimes put on diving gear to feel for treasures hidden in the black muck of river bottoms. But in February, White's hobby cost him his life: A cannonball he was restoring exploded, killing him in his driveway. More than 140...

Virginia Man Killed In Civil War Cannonball Blast May 02, 2008 CHESTER, Va. — Like many boys in the South, Sam White got hooked on the Civil War early, digging up rusting bullets and military buttons in the battle-scarred earth of his hometown. As an adult, he crisscrossed the Virginia countryside in search of wartime relics — weapons, battle flags, even artillery shells buried in the red clay. He sometimes put on diving gear to feel for treasures hidden in the black muck of river bottoms. But in February, White's hobby cost him his life: A cannonball he was restoring...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A Central Florida man's Confederate flag prompted a free-speech battle with his employer, who doesn't want it displayed on company property. The flag is attached to Bobby Tillett's pickup truck, which he drives to work every day, WJXT reported. Because his employer has banned the flag from his parking lot, Tillett is forced to park far from his job. "If I take it down, that means you know the politically correct people would have won, and that's wrong," Bobby Tillett said. "If you believe in something that strong (you) should have no problem whatsoever to fly it."...

Petition Seeks to Remove Denton Confederate Statue(Denton County, Texas)DENTON - While to some the statue of a Confederate soldier that stands before the Denton County Courthouse represents a piece of history, others say they believe it just represents hypocrisy. That stand has incited two University of North Texas students to start a petition for the removal of the historical landmark, a statue of a Confederate soldier holding his gun to represent the South in the Civil War. "It's really very frustrating that so many people would look at this and clap," said Aron Duhon, one of the students behind the...

While the eyes of the political world were focused on Pennsylvania last week, I played hooky for a day at the invitation of the Lee County Library and bumped into a story as revealing in its way as the latest round in the struggle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Among other things, it explains why John McCain found it useful to spend last week touring poverty-stricken areas in the South, where Republicans rarely go. On the same day that Pennsylvanians gave Clinton a victory that still left unclear who will eventually be the Democratic nominee, voters in Mississippi's 1st...

For decades after the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan was the terrorist wing of the Democratic Party. Klansmen murdered hundreds of Republican activists and office-holders, including U.S. Representative James Hinds (R-Arkansas). On this day in 1871, the Republican-controlled 42nd Congress passed and the Republican President, Ulysses Grant, signed into law the Ku Klux Klan Act. The law banned the KKK and other Democrat terrorist organizations. President Grant then... continued at http://grandoldpartisan.typepad.com. Each day, Grand Old Partisan -- http://grandoldpartisan.typepad.com -- highlights 154 years of Republican heroes and heroics (and, occasionally, Democrat villainy).

"At Appomattox, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders his 28,000 troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the American Civil War."

Over the last few months, celebrations for Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday have drawn attention to the Kentucky native's life and his legacy as president. But the 200-year anniversary of another Kentucky president's birth, Confederate President Jefferson Davis, is receiving mixed reviews. "I'll say it this way - winners write history," said Ron Bryant, a Lexington historian writing a book on Davis. "We need heroes, we need villains. Lincoln became a hero and Davis a villain." Davis was born in what is now Todd County, Ky., in 1808, one year before Lincoln. Davis served as the only president of the 11...

The Selected Civil War Photographs Collection contains 1,118 photographs. Most of the images were made under the supervision of Mathew B. Brady, and include scenes of military personnel, preparations for battle, and battle after-effects. The collection also includes portraits of both Confederate and Union officers, and a selection of enlisted men. An additional two hundred autographed portraits of army and navy officers, politicians, and cultural figures can be seen in the Civil War photograph album, ca. 1861-65. (James Wadsworth Family Papers). The full album pages are displayed as well as the front and verso of each carte de visite, revealing...

SHARPSBURG - Antietam National Battlefield is one of the 10 most endangered battlefields in the United States, according to a list released Wednesday by the Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT). The battlefield is "threatened with a 120-foot-tall cellular tower that would be visible from all of the battlefield's most famous vantage points," according to a CWPT press release. Monocacy National Battlefield near Frederick, Md., also is on the list, which also includes sites in several states from Virginia to Oklahoma. National Park Service officials were notified in December 2007 of a proposal to erect a stealth cell tower south of...

Many heads turned in Ringgold Wednesday when they saw an African-American man dressed in a Confederate soldier's uniform, carrying a Confederate flag. It wasn't a joke. H.K. Edgerton came to Ringgold to make a bold statement - he opposes city leader's removing the Confederate flag from the city's flag pole. Edgerton says the Confederate flag is misunderstood, feared and hated because people are trying to be politically correct - which he says desecrates the honor and real meaning of the Civil War era emblem. "I'm here because your town council climbed into bed with all the politically correct folks who...

The South Rises Again by: Malcolm A. Kline, March 20, 2008 Academics’ attitudes towards the South color their teaching about the region, particularly lessons on the Civil War, and their histories, thus, often project myth rather than reality. “Many historians, myself excepted, go in with an argument before they have done their research and seek to impose their present policy positions on the past,” University of Pennsylvania historian Walter McDougall said on March 11 in an appearance at the Cato Institute here. “I prefer to go in plug ignorant.” McDougall is the author of the recently released Throes of Democracy:...

McCain Can Carry the South by Martha Zoller (more by this author) Posted 03/10/2008 ET Updated 03/10/2008 ET “Daddy was a veteran, a southern democrat. They oughta get a rich man to vote like that.” -- Song of the South, Performed by Alabama Ever since The Great Depression, the South has been trying to gain respect from the rest of the country. In every presidential elections since 1968, the winning candidate carried the Old South, and in 2008, John McCain must do so if he is going to win the White House. McCain came south last week to begin to...

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 song is rich with rural, Southern themes. The upbeat melody combined with the sawing fiddles sets the song's mood perfectly. For those of us who grew up in the South, attached to a local church, a close-knit family whose connection to the land is generational, while immersed in the region's hard-core patriotism, it would be hard to imagine a song better suited to voice these sentiments: "Son of a farmer", - "daddy's daddy", - "working on the land", - "married up and settled down", - "pretty daughters", - "a house built with his own hands", - "keep his family...

Some things that are blatantly offensive, such as a Nazi swastika, incite a visceral reaction. The Confederate flag is one of them, too. It's a symbol of a time when our nation was split into two warring factions. The Confederates, the folks who advocated slavery, lost.

(Representative) Brown says it would give motorists a way to show pride in their heritage, but that flag represents a heritage of treason, bigotry, hostility, division and an overall ugly time in American history. No way should his plate proposal become No. 110.

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...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A Panhandle legislator wants Florida to issue license tags honoring "Confederate Heritage" -- complete with images of Dixie flags and buttons from Rebel uniforms. "It's a part of our history, whether we like it or not," Rep. Don Brown, R-DeFuniak Springs, said in an interview with Local 6 News partner Florida Today. "I appreciate the heritage and the good things that people feel about our past." Motorists could pay $25 for the tag, with proceeds going to education programs run by Sons of Confederate Veterans, graveyard location and maintenance, museum exhibits and other cultural activities. The current...

A man in his 50s died this afternoon in an explosion at a house in Chester caused by what appeared to be a Civil War ordnance, police said. No other information about the victim was immediately available.

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...

I hope no actions of my life will be divisive or hurtful to others. If so, I instruct my descendents not to hoist symbols of hurtful or divisive actions on a flagpole for all to see, even if they perceive my service to the action to be honorable.

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The thought of having to dignify the legacy of the Confederacy’s only president by driving my car over his highway rather than his decrepit corpse is enough to make me want to vomit...If there is to be a Jefferson Davis Highway it should begin at the African Civil War Memorial and end at his grave, where onlookers can pull over and spit.

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...