DATE: Thursday, May 22, 1997                TAG: 9705220777

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A4   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: FOCUS

SOURCE: BY JEFF GAMMAGE, KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWS SERVICE 

DATELINE: FRANKLIN                          LENGTH:  125 lines

FOCUS: THE CONFEDERACY RISESONCE HEADED TOWARD OBLIVION, A GROUP DEDICATED TO PRESERVING THE MEMORY OF THE CONFEDERATE CAUSE IS ENJOYING EXPLOSIVE GROWTH IN VIRGINIA AND ACROSS THE COUNTRY. ONE REASON: A BACKLASH AGAINST WHAT SOME WHITE SOUTHERNERS SEE AS A CRUSADE TO DESTROY THEIR HERITAGE.

In the upstairs banquet room of Fred's Restaurant, under baleful portraits of long-dead Confederate soldiers and the bold relief of the battle flag, the South is preparing to rise again.

Or at least it's getting ready for dinner.

Here, over a $7 fried-chicken supper where the accents are as thick as the gravy, the talk is of honor, sacrifice and states' rights. Forty men start the evening with sweetened iced tea and a salute to the Confederate flag, and end it with coffee and a rousing rendition of ``Dixie'' - capped by piercing rebel yells.

They are the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and if you live in the South - or even Philadelphia or Brazil - they are coming to a town near you. Membership in the SCV, as they call themselves, has exploded in the last decade, increasing from 10,000 to 26,000 nationwide, with new chapters forming in states that didn't even exist when the Civil War was fought.

The surge is spurred by a growing interest in the war's history and in genealogy, but also by a backlash against attempts around the country to banish Confederate flags and icons, efforts that many white Southerners see as a crusade to destroy their heritage.

``Our Confederate symbols are being attacked so much that people get sick and tired of it,'' said Collin Pulley Jr., state commander of the Virginia SCV. ``If they take a Confederate symbol off the flag today, they may take a statue off the courthouse lawn tomorrow.''

Such defensiveness, some say, ignores the painful memories the flag evokes for some people, particularly African-Americans whose forebears may have been slaves, or who equate the flag with racism. They say it's impossible to separate the South's soldiers - and the SCV that cherishes their memory - from the pro-slavery government for which they fought or from those who have more recently used the flag as a symbol of hatred.

``They've got to get over the fact that they've lost the war, and they will not accept that,'' said Linda Byrd-Harden, executive director of the Virginia NAACP. ``The Confederate flag is not an American flag, it's a treasonous flag. something honorable about people who kill . . . to maintain slavery.''

SCV members say they've been misrepresented and misunderstood - that they're not racists. The national leadership has condemned hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, which it blames for corrupting the Confederate flag. To the SCV, the flag is not a symbol of bigotry - it's a sacred emblem blessed by the blood of their kinsmen.

``We're proud of the battle flag,'' said Warren Simmons, who is active in the SCV here. ``A lot of people have taken it and used it the wrong way.''

In this tidy town of 7,800, set in the Virginia flatlands 40 miles west of Norfolk, the SCV has grown from 40 to 125 members over the last several years. A new camp was established this month in nearby Emporia. Statewide, the number of camps has increased from 35 to 47 in the last two years, encompassing more than 2,500 members.

There's similar growth elsewhere. The number of North Carolina chapters has shot from 10 to 70, the membership from 475 to 2,500, during the last decade. Once nearly gone from South Carolina, the first state to secede from the Union, the SCV now has 43 healthy chapters comprising more than 2,100 members.

And skirmishes over Confederate symbols, some members say, often inspire people to join.

Last month in Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, the SCV unsuccessfully opposed the renaming of the J.E.B. Stuart and Stonewall Jackson bridges, which connect now predominantly black neighborhoods. The group is upset that the University of Mississippi is considering changing its nickname, Rebels, and its fight song, ``Dixie.'' Earlier this year, the SCV won a major court battle in Maryland when a federal judge stopped the state from banning specialty license plates that feature the group's logo, which includes the flag.

``It's probably a good deal more complicated than simply saying they're racists, which I've certainly had some people tell me,'' said Harry Watson, a history professor at the University of North Carolina. Since 1860, the South has seen war, defeat and Reconstruction, followed by an era of poverty that stretched beyond World War II. Some resented being a conquered people and having their lives dominated by the influence of Yankee money, he said.

Today there's a sense that Southern culture is disappearing, with coffee bars and Chinese restaurants crowding into spaces once reserved for barbecue joints. Some see the SCV as standing against that.

``They say they're just defending the valor of Confederate soldiers,'' Watson said. ``To me, it involves you in an implicit defense of slavery and white supremacy.''

The SCV was formed 101 years ago in Richmond, an outgrowth of the United Confederate Veterans, which sought to honor the war dead and support their widows. As veterans aged and died and the war receded in memory, the SCV shifted its attention to preserving Confederate history.

It was not an easy task. Membership began sliding in the 1930s, and by the 1950s the group was headed toward oblivion. South Carolina had just two chapters in 1960.

Today the SCV is thriving, five times larger than the Sons of Union Veterans.

The lighting of a single white candle opens the meeting, its flame signifying devotion to Confederate ancestors. The men of the Urquhart-Gillette Camp recite the pledge of allegiance to the U.S. flag, then the salutes to the Virginia and rebel flags.

Guest speaker J. Frank Carroll tells a tale of how a fortune in Confederate treasure was spirited from Richmond as the city fell - and promptly disappeared in the re-established capital of Danville. Tons of gold, silver and jewels, worth millions today, remain buried in the Virginia soil, and he knows where to find it, he tells the group. But he says keeping the secret is the best way to honor President Jefferson Davis.

``I think he's smiling in heaven right now,'' Carroll said.

Before and after the lecture, there is talk about what many SVC members think the real reason was for the war - not slavery, though that was a factor, but economics. The North heaped unfair taxes upon the South, they say, and fought to regain that income when the South seceded. Many slaves and owners were closer than family, some here say.

They complain that the truth is never told. It is, after all, the winners who write the history books.

These men swear they'll never forget. And they make no apologies for it.

``Tell them we're proud,'' said Russell Darden, the camp commander. ``Proud to be Southerners, proud to be Americans. We haven't forgot where we came from.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo

Portsmouth's Confederate Monument was enrolled in the Virginia

Landmarks Register in December. The monument's cornerstone was laid

in 1875, but it took nearly 20 years to complete.

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