Posted on 03/03/2006 11:37:56 AM PST by Rebeleye
The removal of the Confederate flag from Amherst County's official seal has upset Southern heritage groups, who contend residents weren't told of the change. County officials acknowledge the image was quietly removed in August 2004 to avoid an uproar.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailypress.com ...
They'll get no argument from county officials: They acknowledge the image was quietly removed in August 2004 to avoid an uproar.
"Any time you get a subject that broad, you can interrupt the entire county," said Leon Parrish of the Board of Supervisors.
Members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and others opposed to the change have gathered hundreds of signatures protesting the flag's removal.
A small image of the flag was in the center of the seal, which was created in 1961 as part of the county's 200th anniversary. While celebrated by some, critics see the flag as a symbol of the South's segregated past and slavery.
The flag's removal came as the result of a resolution from the Board of Supervisors, according to David Proffitt, interim county administrator. A resolution does not require a public hearing.
"I don't think that the county should be promoting anything that's offensive to anyone," Parrish told The News & Advance of Lynchburg, in a story published Thursday. He said he proposed the resolution after receiving requests to do so from residents of his district.
Resident Leah Lovell said that she first discovered the flag was missing in April when she got her new county decal.
"That's the first thing I noticed," Lovell said. "It's part of our history. It affects thousands of people in the county."
At Dixie Outfitters, a Southern heritage memorabilia store in Madison Heights that prominently displays the flag on its storefront, county residents can sign petitions.
Brenda Beeton, who runs the shop with her husband, Dennis, said that she felt eliminating the flag from the seal took away a piece of Amherst County's history.
"When you change history, you burn a book, just like they did in Nazi Germany," Beeton said.
"You might as well live in Russia during the Communist regime."
Still, Parrish said that he and the board stood by their decision.
"People use the excuse that it's history, but if I want to know history, I go to the history books, not a symbol or a picture."
Revisionist BS history by the PC-cowed crowd. They're probably pressuring them to add the sodomite-homo rainbow triangle, as a sign of good faith. Sad.
So, it took almost two years before anyone even noticed? I'd guess it's not such a big deal, then.
For pete's sake...there must be more important things to deal with there in Virginia, I'd think.
"People use the excuse that it's history, but if I want to know history, I go to the history books, not a symbol or a picture."
Somehow I doubt this guy has opened a history book since he was in school.
According to this man's logic, perhap we ought to do away with every monument, museum or artifact of our nations past. Hey as long as it's written in a history book, we don't need any tangible links to the past. Sad to see that the people of this county have elected someone with such a small mind and lack of pride.
Wow. I grew up there and I never even knew there WAS a Confederate flag on the county seal.
I'm ashamed at my home folks being spineless about this. This is very sad...as much the fact that they removed it without telling anyone as anything else. If they wanted to remove it, they needed to have a public debate about it instead of sneaking around like this.
This county, by the way, is about 20 miles northwest of Appomattox, where General Lee surrendered. A lot of Amherst men fought and died in the Army of Northern Virginia (I believe they furnished a battery that served under Pickett at Gettysburg).
}:-)4
Ping for you, suh.
}:-)4
Ouch. You are really asking for it in this crowd. LOL.
Everybody (usually) has 8 Great Great Grandfathers. So I had 8 of 'em, and 7 served the whole War in the Union Army. The 8th changed sides right after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
My people won ~ those people lost. It's time for them to get over it.
Damn Yankee ! ;-P
Wow, that's quite a lineage. I had to search and search just to find ONE gggg uncle who served in the Civil War (Union). I guess I must come from a long line of draft dodgers. LOL.
So, it took almost two years before anyone even noticed? I'd guess it's not such a big deal, then.
For pete's sake...there must be more important things to deal with there in Virginia, I'd think.
Applause to you....standing ovation!!!!! I agree with you that if it took two years to notice it was gone then it was not needed. I think they need to worry about issues that are important to everybody. I know that some people don't agree with this, BUT come on 2 YEARS and wow something is missing...I don't know what, but there is something different....LOL
Then there's the fellow whose cousin or uncle was convicted for violating the Runaway Slave Act ~ I think he got involved in the Jay-Hawk War before the big one.
One of these poor fellows married a woman whose family owned Southern Maryland (for the most part) and just about everyone who lived there. They had 8 to 10 kids ~ but while he was away at war she ran off with a slacker who rode with Morgan's Raiders. His name was Cheney ~ and he ended up taking her to live with his family in Lincoln, Nebraska.
So, you just never know who's a Yankee and who isn't.
Then, too, we forget that these people had friends, cousins, and so forth, and if we can find them, we can sometimes find our own ancestor, particularly since there were many fewer people in the country 150 years ago.
As an example, one of my GGGrandfather's took pioneers West. He belonged to a peculiar church. Bill Clinton's GGGrandfather also took pioneers West. Billzo's own father belonged to that same peculiar church. So, did they know each other, work together, live in the same towns, etc?
Working backwards through Billzo's family (Blythe) it's theoretically possible to find out where my own GGGrandfather lived and what he did. (NOTE: I have more information on Billzo's family than he does because we had to do exactly that.)
Interestingly enough, his (my GGGrandfather) only son became a business partner of R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.'s Great Grandfather.
Small doggone world if you ask me ~ and it only took us 50 some years to find those little nuggets.
Seriously, I don't know of any of my ancestors who fought in the Civil War, of whom were in America were all Northerners (none of my relatives were in the South at that time, the last one, a North Carolina-born Scots-Irish having moved to Illinois from Tennessee after serving under General Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans). The earliest direct ancestor of mine in the U.S. was one of those paid Hessian mercenaries hired by the British during the Revolution, of whom made a rather bold decision to stay in America after the war was over. Most of his comrades who also chose to stay were not so lucky, as the majority of them were hunted down and murdered by New Jersey patriots following the war.
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