Recent racial unrest and turmoil is causing states and municipalities, mostly in the South to reconsider their Confederate flag displays. Now Florida lawmakers have introduced bills curtailing where the Confederate battle flag can be shown. But not everyone wants that flag taken down.
South Carolina took down its Confederate Flag in July after a man shot and killed several people in an attack on a Charleston Church. Now Florida state Sens. Geraldine Thompson and Dwight Bullard, Rep. Darryl Rouson are backing bills to ban the Battle flag from being displayed on publicly owned or leased land. But Florida League of the South spokesman James Calquhoun doesn’t believe the bills should be approved.
“We think this is an agenda by the cultural Marxists, this is an agenda that attacks our Southern identity, it attacks our Southern heritage and that’s what we’re here to raise awareness about," he said.
The League of the South is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Demonstrators waved to drivers and passersby over the weekend as they took to the Old Capitol lawn with Confederate flags on display. Across the street a second group also rallied with the U.S. flag and signs displaying peace.
The Florida Senate has removed the confederate flag from its official seal, and a proposal in the legislature would remove a statue of Edmund Kirby Smith from Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C. He was the last Confederate general to surrender to the union.
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