ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 20, 1997 TAG: 9704210032
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON THE ROANOKE TIMES
The Fincastle Rifles take the credit - or the blame - for Confederate History and Heritage Month.
The skirmishes are breaking out across the country.
In Maryland, the Sons of Confederate Veterans filed a federal lawsuit to retain the option to buy state-issued license plates embossed with the group's logo.
In Texas, the word "Confederate" was removed from the name of a museum of Southern Civil War memorabilia.
In South Carolina, minority groups want the Confederate flag that flies over the statehouse in Columbia taken down.
Now Virginia has its own clash, and the local chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the Fincastle Rifles, is right in the middle of it.
Earlier this month, representatives of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference called for Gov. George Allen to resign because he proclaimed April as Confederate History and Heritage Month.
The groups said the proclamation was racist and discriminatory.
Allen stands behind his decision and says he didn't mean to offend anyone.
The Fincastle Rifles are rallying behind the governor like Stonewall Jackson rallied behind Robert E. Lee.
It was the group's commander, Robert "Red" Barbour of Roanoke, who came up with the idea for the proclamation. He got a copy of a similar declaration in Alabama, asked a member of the Rifles to type up a Virginia version, and had it approved at the state Sons of Confederate Veterans convention in Roanoke three years ago. Allen has signed it ever since.
Barbour said that the declaration is not about slavery, it's about Confederate history.
"And that includes people of all races," he said.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans' counterpart, the Sons of Union Veterans, appears sympathetic to their cause.
"Our feeling is that April being Confederate History Month is recognizing a very important part of our nation's history," said Bob Eck, a Sons of Union Veterans member who lives in Roanoke County. "Our history should be recognized. I personally don't believe ... that this is akin to respect for slavery."
Barbour, 50, is an engaging man who, with his red and gray beard and lined face, resembles a grizzled Civil War veteran. No conversation ends without him waxing historical about some Civil War-related event.
He is a rising star in the Sons of Confederate Veterans ranks.
Barbour joined the Fincastle Rifles in 1989 and took over the commander's post in 1990. At the time, the group had 42 members. Under Barbour's leadership, the Rifles' membership has grown to 321, making it the largest chapter in the state and the third largest in the country.
Barbour has also helped start chapters in Buchanan, Hillsville, Floyd, Appomattox, and Princeton, W.Va.
Barbour said he'll run next year for the highest position in Virginia - the state commander's job.
On Thursday night, Barbour and three of his pals in the Fincastle Rifles - Russell Inge, Sandy Lucas and Gary Gray - sat down to talk about what the Sons of Confederate Veterans is all about.
They say the organization is about brotherhood, storytelling and preserving history.
"We want to teach our children the truth about the war," Barbour said. "It is our duty to uphold the history of our ancestors. I don't want to go to Heaven and have my great-grandfather say, 'You didn't do what you were supposed to do.'''
Several Sons of Confederate Veterans members, in fact, believe they've been "called from the grave" by their Confederate ancestors to uphold their memory.
What is being taught to students in schools today is a slanted "Reconstruction view" of the Civil War, Barbour said. Sons of Confederate Veterans members don't believe what many others in the United States readily accept: That the war started over slavery.
They say the war was about states' rights, slavery being a social issue that played a part in the bigger picture.
Barbour believes the South would have seceded peacefully from the Union and the country would have come back together because of social and technological changes several years later.
Filmmaker Ken Burns' acclaimed Civil War documentary on public television in 1990 incensed members of the Fincastle Rifles. Burns portrayed slavery as the issue that caused the war.
"It was nothing but a Reconstruction tape," Barbour said. "Did you know that we kicked Ken Burns out of the SCV?''
The Sons of Confederate Veterans isn't about political correctness - Barbour calls Abraham Lincoln a "tyrant" and says he was the country's first liberal president.
But it's not about a bunch of beer-bellied rednecks who drive pickups with gun racks, either, they say. The group doesn't have a militia mentality and isn't laced with racists.
Members include doctors and lawyers as well as laborers, retirees and students (the minimum age is 12 to be a chapter member).
Barbour has worked as a tire builder at Yokohama Inc. in Salem for 28 years. Inge is a retired railroad employee. Lucas works for BellAtlantic and Gray is a field engineer for a computer company.
Nationally, members include former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan and Republican U.S. Sens. Jesse Helms of North Carolina and Trent Lott of Mississippi, said Rick Griffin of Darnestown, Md., lieutenant commander of the national organization.
Griffin said the Sons of Confederate Veterans also has minority members, including blacks, Hispanics and American Indians.
Barbour said the Sons of Confederate Veterans condemns racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. Several years ago, the Sons of Confederate Veterans sued the KKK to prevent its use of the Confederate flag, but a judge dismissed the suit on First Amendment grounds.
The Fincastle Rifles also lobbied for a monument to black Confederate soldiers to be built in Richmond, but Barbour says black leaders didn't want it. Members of the group helped clean up a black cemetery in Roanoke in 1994.
But the men know that no matter what they do, some people are going to be offended by the Confederate flag and will continue to have a negative view of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Lucas tells this story:
"We had a man who came to one of meetings once. He stood up and told a story and he used the `n' word. There were about 100 people there, and not one of them laughed. We all sat there stone-faced. The man turned red. He left and never came back.
"We might attract some racists, but once they find out what we're about, they're not going to stick around long."
There are no minority members of the Rifles, but Barbour said he would welcome members of any race. To join, you must be male and have proof that an ancestor fought in the War Between the States, as members prefer to call it.
The chapter will accept associate members who don't have a family tie to the war.
"We want to be inclusive," Barbour said.
Barbour and another well-known local member, Wayne Byrd of Danville, taped a television interview Wednesday with the Rev. Charles Green and the Rev. Carl Tinsley, two members of the Roanoke branch of the NAACP.
The men talked for more than an hour after the cameras stopped rolling.
Barbour has invited Green to a Sons of Confederate Veterans meeting, and Green has said he's going to go.
"I don't think [Barbour and Byrd] hate black people," said Green, who has received several hate calls from people since the proclamation flap started.
"White people have had history all their lives. They've never been slaves," Green said. "It's never going to happen in this country, but I think history books used in schools should detail the accomplishments of all people, regardless of race, in an equal fashion."
Green said he was offended by Allen's proclamation, but wouldn't have been if it would have included a reference to the blacks who died during the period.
"As far as we are concerned, the Civil War was about slavery," he said.
LENGTH: Long : 147 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: KELLY HAHN JOHNSON THE ROANOKE TIMES Robert "Red"by CNBBarbour of Roanoke is commander of the Fincastle Rifles, the local
chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. color