THE LEDGER-STAR
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 3, 1994 TAG: 9410030203
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: DANVILLE, VA. LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
A smoldering flap over the Confederate flag in what was the Confederacy's last capital is dividing black residents and become a dividing issue in Virginia's high-profile U.S. Senate race.
Blacks are demanding that City Council reverse its decision to fly the flag on the grounds of a city-owned museum, said the Rev. William Avon Keen, local president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
``They are placating the racist community,'' Keen said. ``Our position has always been that the Confederate flag is a treasonous flag and a hate symbol that has been adopted by white supremacy groups.''
Keen says blacks may commit acts of civil disobedience at the museum and sue the city over the decision. But other blacks say Keen and his supporters are crusading for a lost cause.
The council voted last month to allow the Heritage Preservation Association to build on the museum lawn a monument that would be topped with a Confederate flag.
The 7-2 vote in the tobacco-industry town split along racial lines with the council's only black members dissented.
Joyce Glaise, a black councilwoman, and Louis Cobbs, vice president of the Danville branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, want the controversy behind them so they can concentrate on economic and social problems.
Cobbs said the flag reminds blacks their ancestors were slaves.
``The flag now represents the attitude of many people that blacks are inferior. You see it in the way these young whites use the flag on the back of their trucks and hurl insults at blacks as they drive by,'' he said.
But Cobbs said the answer for blacks, who comprise 30 percent of Danville's population, is to live with council's decision and ``remember it when we go to the polls.''
The issue surfaced in the Senate race when Republican Oliver North visited two weeks ago and said he supported public display of the flag.
Charles S. Robb, the Democratic incumbent, accused North of trying to divide voters and ``reopen old wounds'' by appealing to intolerance. North then accused Robb of using the Confederate flag issue to appeal to supporters of L. Douglas Wilder, the black former governor and Robb's political rival, who had abruptly withdrawn from the Senate race a week earlier.
Wayne Byrd, president of the Danville branch of the Heritage Preservation Association, said the lingering controversy perplexes him. He considers the fight finished.
His organization is collecting donations to pay for the $10,000 monument and plans to erect it in late November or early December. The Confederacy's third and final national flag will be mounted atop the 7-foot obelisk.
``Some of these people offended by the flag are a small minority. I think they are going to be that way until they find that the majority of the people have the say in this country and that's what democracy is about.''
The Confederate flag was removed last year from a pole in front of the Museum of Fine Arts and History after some residents complained it was a symbol of racism.
The museum was the house where Jefferson Davis was staying with his cabinet when in April 1865 he issued his final proclamation as president of the Confederacy.
After fleeing Richmond, five days before Gen. Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox, Davis urged Confederates to defy those who ``have believed us less able to endure misfortune with fortitude than to encounter danger with courage.''
Council member E. Stokes Daniels, Byrd and some great-grandsons of Confederate veterans argued that the flag is part of the city's history.
Flag supporters have purchased advertisements in the local newspaper and writing letters to the editor. They have distributed bumper stickers and organized a parade of about 150 people who waved Confederate flags and marched to the museum. They have presented a petition bearing 5,000 signatures from 21 states urging Council to return the flag.
Earlier this year, the Heritage Preservation Association helped fend off efforts to replace or rewrite the official state song, ``Carry Me Back To Old Virginia.'' Many blacks find the song offensive because of lyrics that refer to slavery.
But Keen says he is right to rigorously fight the Confederate flag.
``Why is it all right for Jewish people to be offended by the Nazi flag but it is wrong for African Americans to be offended by the Confederate flag, a flag that symbolizes genocide and lynching?''
Keen said they often display the black liberation flag, with red, black and green stripes. ``But you don't see us flying the Black Panther flag.''
KEYWORDS: CONFEDERATE FLAG by CNB