Rebel flags barred from Lexington poles

The city council adopted a measure that would limit flags to those of the nation, state and city.

By Duncan Adams

Participants in a Sons of Confederate Veterans rally held at Hopkins Green in Lexington wave flags to protest proposed changes to a city ordinance that would ban flags, including the Confederate flag, from public lampposts. The proposal passed 4-1.

Virginia State Police monitor Thursday’s rally. Confederate flags are still permitted on private property in Lexington.

A passer-by eyes protests at the Sons of Confederate Veterans rally in Lexington on Thursday.

LEXINGTON — The arguments have been made thousands of times before. The Confederate flag is a symbol of history and Southern heritage. No, the flag is a symbol of hatred and racism.

In essence, the same arguments dominated a public hearing held Thursday night by the Lexington City Council to solicit input about an ordinance amendment that will effectively ban the display of the flags of the Confederacy from public light poles in the city.

City residents spoke first, and the majority, including whites and blacks, expressed support for the ordinance and described the Confederate flag as a symbol of slavery and oppression that is offensive to many. Once county residents and people from outside the area spoke, there was more opposition to the ordinance amendment and more insistence that the Confederate flag should be honored as a symbol of Southern heritage and the men who fought for the Southern side.

After a hearing of nearly three hours, in which strong emotions were expressed from both sides and there was some rowdiness at times, the city council voted 4-1 to adopt the ordinance amendment.

The new Lexington ordinance's section on flags specifies, "Only the following flags may be flown on the flag standards affixed to light poles in the city and no others:" — the American flag, the Virginia flag and the flag of the city of Lexington.

The ordinance does not prohibit people from carrying the Confederate or other flags or displaying them from private property — a reality cited by many people who supported the ordinance's adoption.

But it does effectively ban the display of flags of the Confederacy and others that have previously flown from city light poles — including flags of Virginia Military Institute and of Washington and Lee University.

Civil War history runs deeply through both schools and Lexington.

W&L's name refers to George Washington and to Confederate Gen.Robert E. Lee. The latter served as a president for the school after the Civil War.

Confederate Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson taught at VMI before the war.

Both men are buried in Lexington.

Stewart MacInnis, a spokesman for the military school, said city workers have in years past flown the school's flag on lampposts for "special days — graduation, games and the like."

He guessed such displays happened about six times a year, "perhaps a few more or less."

"VMI has no opinion on the proposed changes to the flag ordinance," MacInnis said. "We view this as a local issue."

Jeff Hannah, a spokesman for W&L, said the university has not taken an institutional position on the matter. Like MacInnis, Hannah estimated W&L flags fly about a half-dozen times in the city each year.

Lexington officials have wrestled before with controversy about the display of the flags of the Confederacy. The city lost one related legal battle. A federal injunction issued in 1993 prohibits Lexington from denying the rights of individuals to display the flags of the Southern side.

The issue resurfaced in late 2010 at the approach of the holiday weekend each January that happens to pair the Lee-Jackson Day state holiday on Friday with the Martin Luther King Jr. Day federal holiday on Monday.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans had wanted to fly Confederate flags from light poles downtown in the days preceding Lee-Jackson Day, the day itself and the day after, when a Lee-Jackson Day parade would pass by.

Instead, the city council limited the period the flags could fly to the days preceding the state holiday. Brandon Dorsey, commander for Camp 1296 of the Stonewall Brigade of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said then that the city's response demonstrated "a longtime antagonism against" public display of the Confederacy's flags.

"Our goal is to see that the historical flags associated with Lee and Jackson be permissible under the ordinance for their state holiday in the town where they were laid to rest," Dorsey said Wednesday.

He said also that the ordinance ought to include a process through which a locally based civics organization or educational institution could apply to fly their flags for an event in the city.

A pro-Confederate flag rally held before the meeting drew about 300 people.

H.K. Edgerton, a black man described by some as a Confederate history activist and by others as an apologist for slavery, was the event's keynote speaker. Edgerton was once president of a North Carolina branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Before speaking, Edgerton called Lexington "the most sacred city in the South" because of its association with Lee and Jackson.

He said he does not believe Confederate flags symbolize hatred or bigotry but represent the two words uttered most often at the rally — history and heritage.

"The whole world was complicit in slavery," he said. "The Confederate belongs to the black man as much as anyone."

For many, the Confederate flag represents slavery, racism and sometimes violent postwar repression of black people. Dorsey dismisses this view and has said members of the Stonewall Brigade are history buffs who are descendants of men who "bled and died for this state, at its request, and ought to be remembered and honored."