ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 28, 1996 TAG: 9612300086
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ANNAPOLIS, MD.
SOURCE: Associated Press
The battle over the Confederate flag has moved into Union territory.
Maryland's motor vehicle department has issued special license plates with a Confederate battle flag to about 70 members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, offending black leaders.
``Maryland doesn't need to go backwards with this Jim Crow mess,'' said state Sen. Larry Young, a Baltimore Democrat and chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus.
Young and Hanley Norment, president of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said they will ask the state Motor Vehicle Administration to stop issuing the special plates.
``We in the NAACP are surprised and disappointed that a state agency would cooperate in perpetuating such symbols as this one,'' Norment said.
Patrick J. Griffin III, a Maryland member of the Sons of the Confederacy, said his organization is not racist and abhors the activities of groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.
``There is no intention whatsoever to offend anyone,'' he said.
Griffin, whose great-great-grandfather fought in the Confederate Army, said the license plates are ``a symbol of pride in our heritage.''
The plates display a small Confederate battle flag and ``Sons Confederate Veterans'' written under the license numbers. Sons of Confederate Veterans is among about 170 nonprofit organizations that have special plates.
The plates were approved two years ago. The agency received no complaints until this week, perhaps because only 70 sets of plates out of 3.7 million issued carry the flag logo, said Motor Vehicle Administration spokesman Jim Lang.
``Now that we are aware of its being offensive, we certainly are going to take a look it,'' Lang said.
Sons of Confederate Veterans has about 25,000 members, said Maureen Poole, office manager in the organization's Columbia, Tenn., headquarters. Membership is limited to men who can prove an ancestor was a Confederate veteran.
AP Some black leaders want Maryland to stop issuing license plates showing a Confederate battle flag. The group for which the flag exists calls the plates a symbol of pride, not racism.
LENGTH: Short : 48 linesby CNB