Controversial Confederate Flag Raising Ceremony
\nby FOX News Crews
\nBy Orlando Salinas
\nI thought I\u2019d only see Caucasians attending a controversial Confederate flag raising ceremony, early on Saturday morning in Tampa, Florida. That\u2019s what I get for thinking.
\nBut there they were- a smattering of African Americans, mixing it up with Caucasian bikers wearing Confederate flag jean jackets and caps. But what really caught my eye was seeing some of those same African American folks also sporting the controversial symbol on their bodies too.
\nRight smack dab at the politically powerful junction of Interstate 4 and I-75\u2026 hoisted 139 feet up in the in the air, was what most Americans call the flag of the Confederacy, but what is more correctly referred to by historians as \u201ca soldiers flag.\u201d
\nAnd that flag is huge, 50 feet by 30 feet, about the same size as the U.S. flag, flown over over mega-sized car lots across the country. Car dealers fly the stars and stripes partly out of patriotism, and partly for publicity. And the sons of Confederate veterans, Florida division, is no different.
\nMarion Lambert, who owns the sliver-size piece of property where the flag has been displayed, calls himself a proud member of the sons of Confederate veterans, who says his local organization would never defend the painful issue of slavery. And, as I watched Caucasian and some African Americans, hoist that heavy flag 139 feet in the air, there was a collective but \u201cOut of tune\u201d rendition of \u201cI wish I was in Dixie,\u201d and yep, African Americans folks were singing it too, and off key as well.
\nThe local chapter of the NAACP has condemned this event. Calling it racist, and an abomination to millions of Americans, both African American and Caucasian . I was told it would not talk anymore to the media about this issue, saying it would only bring more publicity to the sons of confederate veterans. I pushed a little more, and was told the national NAACP, had given orders to the local chapter, to no longer talk to the press, saying it would only hurt Senator Barack Obama, the presumed Democrat presidential nominee, \u201cWho needs the votes of those kinds of people in Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Ohio.\u201d I asked \u201cWhat do you mean those kinds of people?\u201d His response- \u2018\u2019You know what i mean.\u2019\u2019
\nThroughout the morning, motorcycles rumbled in and out of the parking lot, making it hard to hear, and these folks wanted to be heard. Marion Lambert told me he wants people to notice the flag, wants people to ask, \u201cWhy is that huge flag being flown here in Tampa.\u201d
\nLamberts answer was simple enough: \u201cI want people to talk to us, let us tell \u2018em we\u2019re not for slavery, we\u2019re not for racism, we don\u2019t hate minorities. We just want to show pride and reverence to our ancestors. We don\u2019t agree with the slavery part, it was wrong, but we can\u2019t ignore this flag. It represents our southern heritage, the good that we want to remember, and the bad part we should never forget.\u201d
\nSo there it was, white and black folks, some sitting on cinder blocks, smoking pipes. One elderly African American man wearing a suit and a Confederate tie, back-slapping and joking with a younger Caucasian man wearing so many Confederate symbols, he looked like the poster child for the event. The local NAACP has called these Confederate flag-supporting blacks \u201cout of touch,\u201d saying they don\u2019t represent black America.
\nI asked the older black man in the Confederate tie, what he thought about the NAACP\u2019s comment, he said \u201cI\u2019m about as black as it gets, I\u2019m the grandson of slaves, I\u2019m a U.S. war veteran, and I\u2019m just as proud of this (Confederate) flag, because it represents my heritage too. And the NAACP doesn\u2019t represent all of black America either.\u201d
\nSure wasn\u2019t what I expected to hear.<\/p>\n
[Submitted by 8milereb]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Controversial Confederate Flag Raising Ceremony by FOX News Crews By Orlando Salinas I thought I\u2019d only see Caucasians attending a controversial Confederate flag raising ceremony, early on Saturday morning in Tampa, Florida. That\u2019s what I get for thinking. But there they were- a smattering of African Americans, mixing it up with Caucasian bikers wearing Confederate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.southernheritageadvancementpreservationeducation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.southernheritageadvancementpreservationeducation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.southernheritageadvancementpreservationeducation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.southernheritageadvancementpreservationeducation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.southernheritageadvancementpreservationeducation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.southernheritageadvancementpreservationeducation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157,"href":"https:\/\/wp.southernheritageadvancementpreservationeducation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions\/157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.southernheritageadvancementpreservationeducation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.southernheritageadvancementpreservationeducation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.southernheritageadvancementpreservationeducation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}