Tampa, FL - The Florida Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans has stated today that the world’s largest flying Confederate Flag will fly for good come April 2009. The Confederate Flag, which has become known as the Tampa Flag or Tampa I-75 Flag, is owned by local resident and SCV member Marion Lambert which has donated his private land for use as the first Tampa Confederate War Memorial.
The property of Marion Lambert borders the heavily traveled I-75 / I-4 junction and will be seen by around 100,000 to 350,000 travelers each day. The Tampa Confederate Flag will be visible for up to 7 miles depending on obstructions of course; however the flag can be seen from the roof of the near by Westfield Brandon Town Center which is about 8.7 miles from the Memorial.
After a week and a half of mud slinging, anti-Confederate hate speech, and political posturing by both the City of Tampa and County of Hillsborough the flag remains flying safely atop its 180 foot flag pole. Despite the negative press it garnered in the local and yankee media whom attacked it with out mercy, the Tampa Flag Project of the Tampa SCV has gained immense support from local and neighboring Southerners whom have rallied around the flag.
By the end of last week, a mere 4 days after the flag project was leaked to local media, Southerners began to strike back against local and Yankee media. From local am talk radio stations all the way up to major cable network news channels Southerners united behind the Confederate Battle Flag and fought back with a never say die ferocity that has not been seen since the South took up arms in defense of its liberty from the Federal Empire in 1861.
In addition to defeating for the time being the anti-Southern media, the Sons of Confederate Veterans made their purpose clear for flying the flag. Tampa Flag Project leader & property owner Marion Lambert during numerous interviews with various news outlets made it clear that the Confederate Flag was not a racist symbol, that Southerners have been “marginalized” and have had their rights ignored as an ethnic people, and most importantly that the Tampa I-75 flag was not being flown in support of racism, and in fact stood in opposition to it.
A little known fact that has been covenantly over looked by the media and the NAACP has been that the Sons of Confederate Veterans and United Daughters of the Confederacy have both went out of their way to not only denounce any form of racism, but have also long ago excommunicated the Ku Klux Klan and any one that does or has belonged to it. You see the modern Confederate Movement, or “Cause” as we like to call it down here in the South, has been very progressive in combating racism and radical elements that support racism or supremacy of any kind, and this applies not only to the SCV and the UDC but to all allied Confederate groups from the SPFL to the LoS.
Hurrah! Spurn the Northern Scum!
June 11, 2008 at 1:13 pm |
I understand and applaud your desire to honor your ancestors and keep the history of an important era in our county’s history alive. That having been said, however, the confederate battle flag is a sign of division and war. It memorializes Americans killing Americans in the bloodiest war our country has endured. Additionally, as you are well aware, the battle flag is seen as a symbol of slavery and racial oppression by many. While you may see it differently, the fact remains that by flying the flag you are actively and knowingly choosing to offend an enormous segment of the population.
I guess my question is why? There are hundreds of ways to pay tribute to your ancestors and to honor the country’s history. Swastikas aren’t flown in Germany, so why would you want to fly a symbol of racism and war here?
I simply don’t get it. Neither, apparently, do you.
June 11, 2008 at 2:07 pm |
Apparently you don’t get it Andrew, let me guess a graduate of the Federal School System….
We Southerners which includes (Confederates, Dixons, Cajuns, Floridians, Georgians, Seminoles, Cherokees, Chickasaw, etc.) do not consider ourselves Americans, we consider our self Southerners or one of the various ethnic sub groups that I listed above.
You Americans are imperials Federalists and have your head up your rear so far that you can’t see the light of day. Basically Americans today are what Britans were about 100 years ago during the last years of the British Empire.
Southerners are no different then the Irish, Cubans, Ukrainians, Palestinians, Israelis, Taiwanese, etc. our nation was invaded by a ruthless and blood thursty foreign invader (America) and we much like the groups I named above are suffering under colonial oppression much like they did, and much like them we will rise and reclaim our liberty from y’all.
We are not Americans, we are worlds apart from what an American is, sure we share the basic contienental principals of Washington, Franklin and Jefferson, but that is where the similarities end.
WE ARE NOT AMERICANS!!!! WE ARE SOUTHERNERS!!! AND WE ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!
Ah, I feel better now that I got that out…
Also the Confederate Flag is no different then the religon of Islam, they were both hijacked by radical racist extremists whom have used its symbolism to spread hate and violence. Thus if you think the Confederate flag is racist then you must also have to share the same view about Islam.
You see unlike Muslims us Confederates have been stepped on by morons like you whom fear us, and have been brain washed into ignorance by the Federal School System which was established following the War of Northern Aggression to do just that.
Read “Myths of American Slavery” or the “South was Right” they are 100% factual and based on 100% fact which is about 95% more fact then can be found in a government text book.
Get a clue… and God Save the South – Down with the USA!
June 11, 2008 at 2:21 pm |
The Confederate Flag is racist? The Confederate Flag is on the same level as the Nazi Flag? What are you a grade “A” dumb ass?!
Listen Andrew I’m a Jewish Southerner, and I want to make it clear to you that I’m not an American either and share the opinion of Jessica and others down here in Dixie.
My ancestors fought for the Confederacy, and yes they were Jewish and lived in Louisiana and suffered unspeakable horrors at the hands of your American Army.
From the accounts of the American Occupation of New Orleans and Louisiana it more resembles the occupation of a Nazi force then anything a Southerner has ever did.
Your American Army and Navy murdered about 2,000 City Police, Fire and Miltia men after they surrendered, and bombarded New Orleans for 4 days after the City surrendered and killed an extra 2,000 innocent citizens.
My ancestors worked in the mayors office and was draged out into the street by US Marines and beat, my great-great-great uncle was in fact beaten to death that day.
My g-g-g grandfather and mother were also beaten but was allowed to survive because they kept the city’s “books” on where our gold was kept, and by our gold I mean the Confederate peoples gold.
The following day after the US Army and Navy took over the city they ushered in Marshall Law where US troops were allowed to pillage the city and rape women at will. The mayor of New Orleans kept records of these acts and per his records he estimates that the Americans raped 3 out of 5 women (multiple times) and looted everything that was not tied down.
It should also be noted that Louisiana is home to the first free Black military unit in the Americas, the CSA Native Guard which was 100% black. These brave men were slaughtered by the American Army after they surrendered.
You ignorance is astounding, how dare you speak ill of the Confederate flag much less compare it to a Nazi Swastika! If you think the two are even close then you are more then ignorant, you may be actually stupid as well.
What the heck, I’ll give a rowdy signature as well… “THE SOUTH SHALL RISE AGAIN”
June 11, 2008 at 3:06 pm |
Andrew is no doubt a Federalist (I hope that is the right term), or as you guys and gals say in Dixie an “Yankee”. He also undoubtedly hates Southerners and probably equally hates other ethnic people that speak out against occupation that have also been opressed by the Americans during the expansion of their Empire.
Reminds me of the old micro-fish files of our local papers in my local library here in Dublin.
We the Irish people dealt with the same garbage when we were fighting to be acknowledged as our own people. The damned English called us a bunch of thugs, back woods, slack jawed idiots, they also called us anti-semetitc to exploit the Catholic vs. Protestant conflict that was going down back in the early 1900’s.
The American Empire like the former British Empire is on its way out… their economy is in the gutter and the Yankee dollar is worth as much as the Canadian one, and don’t get me started on the level of corruption you Americans have in your government. Makes the Roman Empire look like a model system of government…
You Dixons? (Hope that is right, not down on your lingo) need to just stay the course and fight the good fight. This Tampa flag is a good start towards pissing off the Americans living in Dixie and should encourage them to move out. Back in 1916 an Irish farmer by the name of Marcus Woodley erected a massive Irish National Flag near Dublin and within a week half the English moved back home. Just keep your head high and don’t let there ill words wear you down, or intimidate you, its your land not theres and don’t let them forget it.
If I was you blokes I would erect a massive Confederate flag every 100 miles on this road in Florida. Maybe after the Americans drive past 4 or 5 of them they will figure out that they need to turn around and leave.
I wish your people the best of luck and love reading this blog, again it reminds me of our fight for freedom from the damned English.
God Speed to the Southern People and Dixie!
June 14, 2008 at 1:34 am |
Kyle and Jessica, I have to be honest with you–this is the first time I have ever heard it said that we Southerners are “not Americans.” I am unashamedly Southern, I have Confederate ancestors, I am an active SCV member, I was once a member of the Southern Party, although I am now an Independent because the Southern Party is all but dormant here in Florida. Honestly, I think y’all are missing the boat by saying that we Southerners are not Americans, because even our Confederate ancestors still believed they were Americans in the same way that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Patrick Henry, and all the other Founding Fathers were Americans. Our ancestors simply did not think of themselves as Unionists after the North got control of Congress and the presidency, and we Southerners started constantly getting “the short end of the stick.”
As a matter of fact, when the seceded Southern States first decided to form the Confederacy, its founders actually considered retaining the “Stars and Stripes” as the flag of the Confederacy because they felt that the Confederacy was the true descendent of the original union established by the Founding Fathers. Note that the Seal of the Confederacy bears the likeness of Gen. George Washington–an American. The Confederacy also continued to celebrate the Fourth of July as Americans.
Our Confederate founders believed that it was the North, not the South, that had deviated from the U.S. Constitution, and therefore the North should have to come up with a new name and a new flag. When the Northerners refused to buy that argument, the Confederacy came up with the “Stars and Bars” that looked so similar to the old flag. You will notice that even the Confederate Constitution is almost identical to the U.S. Constitution.
Another point I would like to make is that I think the both of y’all may have missed an excellent opportunity to educate Andrew, but instead, y’all chose to insult the man. When I read Andrew’s post, it seemed to me that he was a curious individual asking us to explain why we revere the Confederate flag, our Southern heros, and our Southern heritage the way we do, simply because he is ignorant of why we are the way we are. He really didn’t strike me as being offensive or accusatory, but that is just my own reaction. Sort of like a leftwinger asking me why I doubt “Global Warming.”
I am sure the both of you know that there are a great many native Southerners who have been educated in the public schools who are just ignorant of the historical facts surrounding the events of 1861-1865, and the causes leading to our country’s secession. It isn’t that they are “Yankee Imperialists” or anti-Southern bigots, it is simply that they do not know about the true history of that period and need to be made aware of it.
I do not need to tell either of you that there are a lot of people out there, including native Southerners, who think our efforts to honor our Confederate ancestors and our Southern Nation are wrong simply because the news media, the public schools, and the politicians say we are wrong. Rather than pushing our fellow Southerners away from the Cause by insulting them and making an issue of their ignorance, we need to be trying to educate them, so they can see the truth as we see it, and embrace the Cause. I am sure you would rather have them as supporters than detractors.
We also need to make those who are not familiar with the Southern Movement realize that Southerners come in all races, all religions, and both genders. We are NOT all white Protestant males. If our Southern Movement is going to catch on with other Southerners, we must prove to them that we Southerners all share the same history and heritage. It is the U.S. that has pitted whites against blacks, blacks against Hispanics, Hispanics against Indians, etc. The U.S. has turned its citizens into little competing groups, all looking for their “little piece of the pie.”
The U.S. government likes to “divide and conquer” anyone like us who dares to think differently than the way the government wants us to think. As Southerners, we need to come together for the good of the Southern people and our unique heritage and history. We do not need to allow the U.S. to keep us divided as Southerners. Southerners have more in common than we do different. If we are able to make the majority of Southerners realize that they have been indoctrinated all these years by the government and the Left to hate their own history, heritage, people, and Southern Nation, that they have been mislead with falsehoods, we may end up someday regaining the freedoms we lost in 1865.
June 14, 2008 at 2:09 am |
Bravo Dave!
I have to say that was one well written comment, could not have said it better myself, which I doubt I could have. I applaud the… passion, of Kyle and Jessica but not there aggressive tactics and would like to encourage them to use more tact when defending our people and our cause in the future. As Dave said we could had educated Andrew but instead y’all probably scared him away.
In closing I don’t want to put all of the blame on government schools, after all I’m a high school teacher in Alabama, so in other words I don’t want to shoot my self in the foot, but to a degree I do blame them for the poor lop sided education our children receive especially about the Confederacy and feel that Kyle and Jessica’s passion is misdirected due to that lopsided education.
June 16, 2008 at 12:11 am |
Brent, thank you very much for your kind words. As you say, I should not have given the impression that I was “beating up” the individual school teachers, because I know of several public school teachers who are also SCV or UDC members, and they are as upset as I am about the amount of dogma and propaganda that is associated with the curriculum guidlines they have to follow in teaching American History and American Government classes.
Actually, I place the majority of the fault on the administrators all the way from the Federal and State Departments of Education down to the County School Board, and perhaps even down to the way school principals exercise a degree of control on curriculum. Let me state honestly that I have no experience as a school teacher, so when I judge the public education system, I judge it as a parent and an outsider.
Although I am also a product of the Florida public school system, I consider myself fortunate that I was able to go through that experience back in the 50s and 60s when there was not quite as much propaganda put out as historical fact, and the teachers were permitted to exercise a good bit more leeway in the information that was covered and the type of discussions we were allowed to have in class. Nonetheless, I was taught that although our Confederate ancestors were brave and honorable, the South’s Cause was the institution of slavery, and the South fired the first shot of the War at Fort Sumter, and was therefore the aggressor. It was not until much later in my life, through my own conscientious study, that I realized that the basics of what I had learned about the “Civil War” was not accurate.
It is unfortunate that it takes independent study in order to learn the truth, because so many of today’s young folks do not take that extra effort to do independent study, especially of a subject such as history which they feel is no longer relavent. I suppose it is left up to those of us who do have an appreciation of historical truths to stimulate in others the desire to learn by whetting their appetites for knowledge; otherwise, the next generation may be mostly unaware of our Southern history and our heritage, and that will mean Leviathan has accomplished its goal of completing the defeat of the South.
June 21, 2008 at 1:52 am |
Address of George Williamson, Commissioner from Louisiana to the Texas Secession Convention
George Williamson was born in South Carolina in 1829 and was graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1850. Practiced law in Shreveport and Mansfield, and served as district attorney for Mansfield. During the war he was in the Confederate Army, serving as a staff officer to several generals, including Leonidas Polk, John B. Magruder, and Edmund Kirby Smith. After the war he practiced law and served as a diplomat in Central America. Died at the age of 61. The text of his speech is taken from E.W. Winkler, ed., Journal of the Secession Covention of Texas, pp 120-123. My thanks to Justin Sanders for sending me this.
To the Hon. O.M. Roberts, President of the Convention of the People of Texas.
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the people of Texas.
I have the honor to address you as the commissioner of the people of Louisiana, accredited to your honorable body. With this communication, by the favor of your presiding officer, will be laid before you my credentials, the ordinance of secession, a resolution in regard to the Mississippi river and the ordinance to provide for the appointment of delegates to a convention to form a Southern Confederacy. These ordinances and the resolution were adopted at their respective dates by the people of Louisiana in convention assembled, after serious debate and calm reflection.
Being desirous of obtaining the concurrence of the people of Texas in what she has done, Louisiana invites you to a candid consideration of her acts in resuming the powers delegated to the government of the late United States, and in providing for the formation of a confederacy of “The States which have seceded and may secede.” The archives of the Federal Government bear ample testimony to the loyalty of Louisiana to the American Union. Her conservatism has been proverbial in political circles. The character and pursuits of her people, her immense agricultural wealth, her large banking capital, her possession of the great commercial metropolis of the South, whose varied trade almost rivals that of the city of “ten thousand masts” present facts sufficient to make “assurance double sure” she did not take these grave steps for light or transient causes. She was impelled to this action to preserve her honor, her safety, her property and the free institutions so sacred to her people. She believed the federal agent had betrayed her trust, had become the facile instrument of a hostile people, and was usurping despotic powers. She considered that the present vacillating executive, on the 4th of March next, would be supplanted by a stalwart fanatic of the Northwest, whose energetic will, backed by the frenzied bigotry of unpatriotic masses, would cause him to establish the military despotism already inaugurated.
The people of Louisiana were unwilling to endanger their liberties and property by submission to the despotism of a single tyrant, or the canting tyranny of pharisaical majorities. Insulted by the denial of her constitutional equality by the non-slaveholding States, outraged by their contemptuous rejection of proffered compromises, and convinced that she was illustrating the capacity of her people for self-government by withdrawing from a union that had failed, without fault of hers, to accomplish its purposes, she declared herself a free and independent State on the 26th day of January last. History affords no example of a people who changed their government for more just or substantial reasons. Louisiana looks to the formation of a Southern confederacy to preserve the blessings of African slavery, and of the free institutions of the founders of the Federal Union, bequeathed to their posterity. As her neighbor and sister State, she desires the hearty co-operation of Texas in the formation of a Southern Confederacy. She congratulates herself on the recent disposition evinced by your body to meet this wish, by the election of delegates to the Montgomery convention. Louisiana and Texas have the same language, laws and institutions. Between the citizens of each exists the most cordial social and commercial intercourse. The Red river and the Sabine form common highways for the transportation of their produce to the markets of the world. Texas affords to the commerce of Louisiana a large portion of her products, and in exchange the banks of New Orleans furnish Texas with her only paper circulating medium. Louisiana supplies to Texas a market for her surplus wheat, grain and stock; both States have large areas of fertile, uncultivated lands, peculiarly adapted to slave labor; and they are both so deeply interested in African slavery that it may be said to be absolutely necessary to their existence, and is the keystone to the arch of their prosperity. Each of the States has an extended Gulf coast, and must look with equal solicitude to its protection now, and the acquisition of the entire control of the Gulf of Mexico in due time. No two States of this confederacy are so identified in interest, and whose destinies are so closely interwoven with each other. Nature, sympathy and unity of interest make them almost one. Recognizing these facts, but still confident in her own powers to maintain a separate existence, Louisiana regards with great concern the vote of the people of Texas on the ratification of the ordinance of secession, adopted by your honorable body on the 1st of the present month. She is confident a people who so nobly and gallantly achieved their liberties under such unparalleled difficulties will not falter in maintaining them now. The Mexican yoke could not have been more galling to “the army of heroes” of ‘36 than the Black republican rule would be to the survivors and sons of that army at the present day.
The people of Louisiana would consider it a most fatal blow to African slavery, if Texas either did not secede or having seceded should not join her destinies to theirs in a Southern Confederacy. If she remains in the union the abolitionists would continue their work of incendiarism and murder. Emigrant aid societies would arm with Sharp’s rifles predatory bands to infest her northern borders. The Federal Government would mock at her calamity in accepting the recent bribes in the army bill and Pacific railroad bill, and with abolition treachery would leave her unprotected frontier to the murderous inroads of hostile savages. Experience justifies these expectations. A professedly friendly federal administration gave Texas no substantial protection against the Indians or abolitionists, and what must she look for from an administration avowedly inimical and supported by no vote within her borders. Promises won from the timid and faithless are poor hostages of good faith. As a separate republic, Louisiana remembers too well the whisperings of European diplomacy for the abolition of slavery in the times of annexation not to be apprehensive of bolder demonstrations from the same quarter and the North in this country. The people of the slaveholding States are bound together by the same necessity and determination to preserve African slavery. The isolation of any one of them from the others would make her a theatre for abolition emissaries from the North and from Europe. Her existence would be one of constant peril to herself and of imminent danger to other neighboring slave-holding communities. A decent respect for the opinions and interests of the Gulf States seems to indicate that Texas should co-operate with them. I am authorized to say to your honorable body that Louisiana does not expect any beneficial result from the peace conference now assembled at Washington. She is unwilling that her action should depend on the border States. Her interests are identical with Texas and the seceding States. With them she will at present co-operate, hoping and believing in his own good time God will awaken the people of the border States to the vanity of asking for, or depending upon, guarantees or compromises wrung from a people whose consciences are too sublimated to be bound by that sacred compact, the constitution of the late United States. That constitution the Southern States have never violated, and taking it as the basis of our new government we hope to form a slave-holding confederacy that will secure to us and our remotest posterity the great blessings its authors designed in the Federal Union. With the social balance wheel of slavery to regulate its machinery, we may fondly indulge the hope that our Southern government will be perpetual.
Geo. Williamson
Commissioner of the State of Louisiana
City of Austin Feby 11th 1861.
June 21, 2008 at 1:53 am |
The most important statement…
“Louisiana looks to the formation of a Southern confederacy to preserve the blessings of African slavery, and of the free institutions of the founders of the Federal Union, bequeathed to their posterity.”
Billy Yank
June 27, 2008 at 12:21 am |
Jessica-
“We are not Americans! We are Southerners!”
~~~~~~~
No! No! You’ve got it all wrong!
We can’t surrender the name American to these Yankee-Nazi thugs!
CSA stands for Confederate States of >America<.
We’re fighting the Yankee-Nazis from taking away everything we have to honor our history and heritage- monuments, flags, and even songs -so don’t give them the word ‘American.’