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After enduring a steady barrage of slings and arrows from this correspondent, flaggers did a wise thing.
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Dick |
Kenneth Waters, an advocate for the pre-2001 state flag, asked for the
opportunity to tell their side of the story. He put together a lunch with
Dan Coleman, spokesman for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and William
Lathem, head of the Southern Heritage Political Action Committee, that was
testy at times, but ended well enough to have been worth everybody's time.
Coleman and Lathem are decent men who believe passionately in their
cause. They are also terribly frustrated. They feel Gov. Sonny Perdue lied
to them. They believe candidate Perdue promised them a vote on the
pre-2001 state flag, better known as the Confederate battle flag. That
didn't happen, of course. They are angry with members of the General
Assembly who they claim caved in to pressure from blacks and
image-conscious business leaders and allowed the flag referendum to take
place without the pre-2001 state flag. Where flaggers found themselves
before the election assiduously courted by politicians, they now find
themselves ignored.
Both men say they want people to have the opportunity to vote on the
pre-2001 flag. Lathem cites a poll by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research in
December 2003 in which half the Georgians polled stated a preference for
having the old state flag on the referendum. As for the results of the
April referendum, the two men believe the low turnout shows most Georgians
were dissatisfied with the two choices on the ballot. And what is wrong
with the current state flag, which strongly resembles the Confederate
Stars and Bars? Lathem says, ''If the people of Georgia accept the current
flag, they have condoned a lot of lies by politicians.''
They resent the rhetoric of people like former state representative and
current NAACP director Julian Bond, who calls the flag ''a Confederate
swastika,'' and NAACP director Kweisi Mfume, who said in a January 2000
letter, ''There could be a better use of state and federal resources by
the closing of museum and battlefields, which are dedicated to the
preservation of slavery.'' Fighting words to Coleman and Lathem. Coleman
says the War Between the States was not about slavery, and at the
beginning of the war, the Union had more slave states (eight) than the
Confederacy (seven).
In Coleman's view, those who are trying to preserve Southern heritage
feel betrayed by politicians, scorned by the media and made to look like
bigots by groups like the NAACP and the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. He
says flaggers have drawn a line in the sand. What they plan to do is
another question.
Lathem says they intend to defeat those legislators who they believe
lied to them. They will have an uphill battle because they are talking
about unseating powerful people like House Speaker Terry Coleman, Sen.
George Hooks, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Sen.
Eric Johnson, president pro tem of the Senate, among others. Dan Coleman
says his group is willing to give Perdue another chance to get the old
state flag on a future referendum, but given the flaggers' heavy-handed
tactics with the governor, that is unlikely.
They take more credit for the defeat of Gov. Roy Barnes than I am
willing to give them. The state flag was only one of a number of
controversial issues that led to Barnes' loss. Today, it is obvious many
of Georgia's elected officials don't think flaggers have the clout they
claim and have chosen to ignore them. Coleman and Lathem say that is a
serious miscalculation. After this fall's elections, we will know who was
right.
Coleman says there are flag supporters over whom no one has control.
Too bad. Those people are the ones who most hurt the flaggers' efforts by
threatening politicians and the media. That strategy will ultimately
backfire. If flaggers are to succeed in their efforts this fall, they are
going to need to be making friends, not enemies. A good place for them to
start would be reaching out as Waters, Coleman and Lathem did.
Dick Yarbrough is a retired corporate executive and is active in the civic
and business community in Georgia. You can reach him through
yarb2400@bellsouth.net or P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Ga.
31139.
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