Elgin Jones, South Florida Times, June 15, 2009
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More than 100 people converged on the steps of Homestead City Hall for a press conference organized by clerical, civil rights and community groups who submitted the list of demands.
“We are ready to talk with the city of Homestead and the Homestead Chamber of Commerce concerning our action items. And our issues are with them, and not with the Sons of the Confederacy,” said Bishop Victor T. Curry, president of the Miami-Dade branch of the NAACP. “If the Sons of the Confederacy want to have their own parade, we are not trying to stifle freedom of speech or freedom of expression. We just don’t want to see racism walking down the streets of Homestead, being funded by the taxpayers.”
Curry warned business leaders that if their demands are not met by the 30-day deadline, the controversy would escalate to another level.
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“We are also prepared to say to the businesses that support the chamber, that if you want to offend the people of this great county and community, then we will seek other places to spend our dollars,” Curry said. “We will not pay you to offend us.”
At the press conference, the coalition of organizations issued a six-point ultimatum and a 30-day deadline for those conditions to be met. If the demands are not met, the city could face protests and economic boycotts of local businesses.
The list of demands includes:
o An apology from Mayor Lynda Bell and city officials over their handling of the issue
o A reversal of the city council’s vote to dissolve the advisory Homestead/Florida City Human Relations Board, which initiated the challenge to the Confederate flag
o A meeting between city officials and coalition members to discuss other concerns
o A meeting between Chamber of Commerce representatives and the coalition to discuss their concerns
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o The Chamber of Commerce’s restriction of all flags in its events to official local, state and/or national flags.
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The controversy dates back to the 2008 Veterans Day Parade in the city, which was organized by the Greater Homestead/Florida City Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber allows the Sons of Confederate Veterans to march and display the Confederate battle flag in the procession.
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Homestead officials say they had no say in the city’s Veterans Day parade because it was organized by the chamber’s Military Affairs Committee, and the city only provided in-kind and logistical support. Therefore, they said, the city has no say in who is allowed to participate in the event.
Chamber of Commerce officials say it is a matter of freedom of speech, and they would not ban the groups from marching in future parades.
H.K. Edgerton is a 61-year-old African American and former president of the Asheville, North Carolina branch of the NAACP.
He is also the founder and president of Southern Heritage 411, a pro-Confederate States organization whose intended purpose is to educate black people about their role in the Confederate Army and civil war.
“If they are successful in banning the flag, we will surely file a lawsuit to stop it,” Edgerton said when he was informed of the press conference.
He also sits on the board of the pro-Confederacy, Southern Legal Resource Center in Black Mountain, North Carolina, which is near Asheville.
“I think it’s absurd,” he said. “It sends the wrong kind of message, especially when you’re talking about fulfilling Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of bringing together the sons of former slaves and slave owners. What the NAACP is doing, once again, is trying to use the Confederate flag to solicit donations and increase its coffers, with the same old tactic of trying to divide Americans, but it will fail again.”
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[Editor’s Note: Earlier stories on the Homestead matter are listed here.
Original article
Email
Elgin Jones
at EJones@SFLTimes.com .
(Posted on June 15, 2009)
Comments
Who died and left the NAACP God? Actually, they’re that arrogant because they can be that arrogant, nobody ever checks them or tells them where to put their demands.
Let em boycott Homestead. Let them proclaim their boycott in every medium they can. Watch Homestead’s business go way up.
When I was stationed in Colorado, we had a simular problem with the Confederate flag on license plates and car antennas. Of course the people complaining were displaying the flag of mexico, haiti, panama, jamacia, and various countries from africa. The solution that was implemented was that no flag or representation of a flag was allowed to be displayed. I think we know who complained the loudest but they were told either no flag can displayed or ALL flags can be displayed. Fair is fair after all.
This is infuriating. A gang of thugs with nothing to do decides they can dictate city policy because they are black and history has been unkind to blacks. And if the city and its citizens don’t capitulate to their insane demands, they threaten to demonstrate their righteous anger, and to impose a black boycott of local businesses. All of it is the work of a gang of thugs dedicated to proclaiming how evil whites are and how put-upon blacks are, and how important and powerful their gaudy orginization is.
What might happen if a group dedicated to ending the systematic slander of white Anglo/European males, demanded that the pastel colored arc that symbolizes the Rainbow Coalition be eliminated from display within the confines of the same town?
What might happen if that same group of whites were to announce that if the municipal government did not capitulate, apologize and kiss ass, that local merchants would refuse to stock Kool cigarettes and Thunderbird wine? Nothing but alarm and civil commotion and another denunciation of white racism.
One also wonders what these guys would do for a living if they were unable to convince a great many gullible people that they are serving the (black) public good.
Sounds to me that is exactly what the NAACP is DOING! Then what is the NAACP doing than? The NAACP is funded by taxpayer money and I find them horribly bigoted, anti-free speech and anti-white!
I am really getting sick of the NAACP making demands. They want Affirmative Action in hiring AND promotions, Diversity, Quotas and on and on. They never stop calling everyone who disagrees with them “RACIST.” The country has spent trillions of dollars on our black citizens but it is never enough. Despite all of the programs designed to help them, they continue to protest everything and continue to blame Whitey for everything, including the crimes they commit and the out of wedlock babies they produce. Will it ever stop?
No one needs or wants Uppidy NAACP BLACKS making demands. The WHITEs could not get to the town hall, they were all working. I want to see what that next level is. What BLACKS need is a Kent State style,Wounded Knee or WACO style massecure. Our furture Congressmen and Senators were burning and rioting on college campuses in the 60s until the troops opened fire at Kent State. After Kent State the riots and burnings ended. I have already begun to morn the future massecure and I am in pre-healing.
Maybe it’s time for all these Southern heritage advocates, and maybe us copperheads in the North, to get out our stars and bars, get off our asses and go parade in from of NAACP headquarters all over the south and demand they get off our backs and respect OUR culture, history and rights. I know there’s got to be thousands of confederate flags and uniforms out there. I see them playing war at all these reinactments. How about some of these weekend warriors dressing up and marching in from of NAACP headquarters with flags and picket signs. That would take the kind of balls those real confederates had 140 years ago. That sort of action would do more to honor those soldiers, than shooting blanks at pretend yankees.
Why do we bother to have elections in this country? According to this article, it does not matter who gets elected to the city council or the mayor’s office. The real path to power is to be hired as a race hustler by the NAACP (or any of the other shakedown artists). Then you can present a list of demands to the elected officials, who will cower and beg for forgiveness.
Why bother with campaigning for public office just to get bullied and ordered around by these thugs?
“we are not trying to stifle freedom of speech or freedom of expression, but” (“we ARE trying to blah blah blah”)
Again, the NAACP is whining over the Confederate Flag. They threaten to boycott Businesses if the Sons of Confederate Veterans don’t bow to them, and not fly, or carry, the offending flag.
Really? Is that all it will take to keep Blacks and other Minorities OUT of Our Stores, and places of Business? A simple Confederate Flag?
If that’s the case, every White Business should be flying them, North and South of the Mason-Dixon line. Maybe these “people” will finally get the message that we can’t be bothered serving them in our establishments, providing expert Electricians, Plumbers, and Carpentry skills, or Accounting, Medical, or Legal Representation, either.
The Blacks can keep their money. Most of it arrives to their home by way of a Government check, anyway, so it is really Our Money.
What gets me is that the Sons of the Confederate Veterans cannot participate in a Parade because this anti-White Racist Group takes offense to them.
Well, they are the descendants of the people who made the South,and have a history on that land, along with the blood of the those who helped Found this Nation.
Just who is the NAACP to dicate to anyone?
And while these “Professional Protesters” are all hot and bothered over a flag, where is the Organizations’ Group Remorse for the latest killing of Christopher Jones, a White 14 year old boy, who was viciously attacked, and beaten to death by six Teenage Blacks, in Maryland?
When is the NAACP to Aplologize for the brutal carjacking, rape, torture, mutilation, and murder of Channon Christian, and Christopher Newsome, in Knoxville, Tennessee? Both can be seen on You Tube.
They are noticably silent on all of those heinous crimes, aren’t they? They should be on their knees begging the families of these Murder Victims, for their forgiveness, for the Wontonly Criminal, and Brutal Acts of their “people”.
After the latest act of senseless, Vicious Murder of Christopher Jones, no one could stir any emotion of sympathy, or concern,in me for any Black, or other Minority, here, or around the world.
I simply don’t care what happens to any of them.
Speaking as a white American I am greatly offended by the sight of racist blacks who define themselves as “African-Americans”. Since they themselves chose to place the word “African” first ahead of the word “American” I refuse to comsider them to be Americans; only displaced Africans…
There’s another way of looking at this, folks. Blacks need a living space where they can be free of signs of intimidation, belittlement, and mockery just like everyone else needs that.
The lowland South is where nature favored blacks the most. After all, they did supply the labor that fueled the massive plantation economy that helped put America on the map. Maybe they should get their 40 acres and a mule. Maybe it’s natural and proper that blacks have political leadership in the territories where their numbers are greatest.
Read up on Jim Crow. Some black nationalists say that blacks did better with separation, because their best and brightest used their talents to better their own people. Blacks spent their black earnings with black businesses in their own internal economy, so blacks could develop their own potentials and follow their own path that nature set out for them.
Whites do best in the hills in the South. Blacks do well in the lowlands.
If ever blacks were really to boycott any area, the influx of whites to that area would be overwhelming. Get Out Of The Way, I don’t want anyone hit by one of those moving trucks bringing thousands of white familys into the boycotted area.
Fly those stars and bars! And I say this as someone who had ancestors in the Union Army and whose mother is a member of the Daughters of Union Vets!
I think they look at the Confederate flag as a symbol of oppression. I guess a lot of their ancestors didn’t think so, as some blacks fought for the South out of loyalty for their masters. As a lifelong Yankee, I’ve come to learn that it’s not the case…the Confederate flag represents freedom, the way I see it. And when I learn how the South was pillaged after the war, it does sadden me. I think I would have been at home in the Old South.
And I agree with other posters here—blacks boycotting can only be a good thing! It would mean that whites could shop and otherwise do business in peace.
Does the NAACP complain when the invaders from the south wave their flag? They don’t seem to realize that illegals will be taking THEIR jobs, yet they’re spending time complaining about the Confederate flag. I don’t wave a Confederate flag, but I had dozens of relatives who fought in that war. And those who do will not be out to take jobs from blacks.
NAACP
National Association for the Advancement of Confederate Pride
Just for that I’m going to raise ol’ Dixie one hour earlier every morning.
So let me get this stright… it is not ok to respect out heritage but ok for us to watch everytime a blackman in a sporting event score a point or make a good play to jump arround and with a balled up fist hit himself in the chest and hold it up as a sign of “BLACK POWER” in the honor of the Black Panthers?
I am certain that the US Constitution in no way abridges each citizen’s right to be offended by something. So, to the NAACP I say “just live with it.” I’m offended that they are offended by the Confederate Battle Flag. It might help if they had the good sense to read a little history and stop this foolishness of comparing the Confederate flag to the symbols of the Nazis. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, I’m offended by the existence of the NAACP. Let’s continue to fly the Confederate flag whenever we feel like it, only get larger and larger flags and let them proudly wave!!!
Deo Vindice.
“And they shall beat their ploughshares into swords and their pruning hooks into spears.”
Just to correct a point, the Stars and Bars is not the same as the Battle Flag. The Battle Blag is what the NAACP gets all upset over. The Stars and Bars, on the other hand, generally goes unrecognized by the perennially indignant.
Jim Sachsen, of post #20 wrote how the NAACP usually gets their shorts in a bunch over the Confederate Battle Flag.
This is true, because the NAACP, as well as the White Liberal Socialists know very little History, despite their many years at Private, or Ivy League Schools, and could not tell the difference between the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy, and the original Stars and Stripes, which was adopted by Congress, and is called the “Betsy Ross Flag”.
