Confederate flag to fly in Mo.

Governor orders symbol raised at historic cemetery

June 04, 2005|Associated Press

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri's governor has ordered that the Confederate flag be flown tomorrow at a state cemetery where former rebel soldiers were buried, a move denounced by black leaders.

A spokesman for Governor Matt Blunt said the flag will fly for one day at the Confederate Memorial State Historic Site in Higginsville, where a service is planned to mark Confederate Memorial Day.

But Spence Jackson, a spokesman for Blunt, said the Republican governor also supports a scholarly review of whether it would be appropriate to again fly the Confederate flag regularly at the historic site.

Mary Ratliff, president of the Missouri State Conference of the NAACP, was irate when she learned yesterday of Blunt's decision. ''It is just appalling to me that the governor would again raise a flag that is so humiliating and reminds us of the vestige of slavery that has divided our nation for all these years," Ratliff said.

The state NAACP has a regularly scheduled meeting today in Columbia, and Ratliff said she would be ''asking for drastic measures from our national office."

Ratliff noted the NAACP has led a 5-year-old boycott of South Carolina because of its display of the Confederate flag on the State House grounds.

Confederate flags had flown daily at the Higginsville site and the Fort Davidson State Historic Site in Pilot Knob until they were ordered down in January 2003 by Democratic Governor Bob Holden's administration.

Blunt has supported legislation, which failed to come to a vote this year, that would have allowed the state park board to decide whether the Confederate flag should fly over Missouri's historical gravesites. The bill was opposed by many black lawmakers.