The 12,000-strong city of Bucyrus, Ohio, down near Mansfield, will host a “Confederate Flag Pride Parade” on Saturday.
The Port Clinton News-Herald reports that roughly 50 vehicles are expected to participate, and that city leaders are expecting neither disruption nor significant changes in traffic volume.
Event organizers didn’t exactly echo the “heritage not hate” refrain of Confederate Flag supporters nationwide. One told the News-Herald that the flag is “not racist at all,” that it’s “just another red, white and blue flag,” a “military thing.”
He said that organizers in Bucyrus had been trying to assemble a parade before, but couldn’t muster up more than five or 10 vehicles to participate. After this summer’s terrorist attack by Dylan Roof in South Carolina, though, and the subsequent removal of the Confederate Flag from the S.C. capitol building, those who contend that the flag is most certainly not a racist symbol have emerged in force.
The parade’s announcement comes shortly after a parade on the other side of town which featured confederate symbols.
In Willoughby, where the high school’s mascot, “The Rebel,” is a confederate soldier, and where students sill embroider the confederate flag onto their letterman jackets in spite of school rules, a downtown parade on Aug. 15 included a float celebrating Sons of Confederate Veterans. That float included a Confederate National Flag and, bizarre as it sounds, an Alabama Sate flag.
In an editorial in the News-Herald, activist and Willoughby resident Maggie Rice said she thought the float reflected poorly on the city of Willoughby and urged city leaders to apologize.
“This parade said to people visiting Willoughby, particularly people of color, (including the young girls of the predominantly black dance team who performed) that Willoughby is not for them; that we don’t welcome them, and that our city is not a safe environment for them,” Rice wrote.
Rice told Scene that a group she organizes with in Lake County will press Mayor David Anderson to ban the flag from city events, and will work to educate the public about the flag’s history.
This article appears in Aug 26 – Sep 1, 2015.
The photo that you used should be removed immediately. You are insinuating that South High School condones the use of the flag with their mascot. It is totally against the rules that the school district uses. What students do on their own clothing should not be held against the school itself. This is very lowball reporting.
If the folks waving the flag for the losing side in that little thing called the Civil War ever took a look at the tag that states where the item was manufactured……they would really get hoppin’ mad.
The irony of this is really off the charts given the number of Ohioans who died in the civil war fighting against everything that flag stands for. Somewhere their ancestors are rolling in their graves.
You missed the best quote. The organizer provided the ultimate proof of not being a racist: “One of my best friends is a colored gentleman”
Way to make it seem like Bucyrus has anything to do with this. They city has to let this happen and most of the members will probably be from out of town. Try visiting the town and meeting people that live there before you assume what is going on.
South has not used the confederate flag since the early 90’s. The picture you show is an inaccurate representation of our school district
Has anyone told these idiots that Ohio fought for the UNION side in the Civil War. I wish all of my ancestors who were Union soldiers could rise from their graves and chase these idiots out of this state!
Bless you Ohio from a Southern Rebel.
Things about the civil war your high school history class doesn’t teach you: 1) Congress never declared war on the South, Lincoln did this on his own. 2) The South had already seceded and was not a threat. 3) Lincoln attacked the South, not to preserve the Union but to preserve the government’s revenue stream as the South paid over 70% of the total tariffs collected by the federal government.
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were all formed from the old “Northwest Territory” of which a significant amount was originally claimed by the Sovereign “Mother” State of Virginia, and it was Virginia–NOT the U.S. Federal government–which mandated this Territory be “free” (no slavery allowed)…Those 3 States (particularly their southern halves) were predominantly originally settled by SOUTHERNERS from Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky, and their original State Capitals were all in the southern part of each State…This “Sudatenland of the South” was the epicenter of the “Copperheads” (pro-Southern “Northerners”) during The War Between The States, and remains a largely neo-Southern culture/society to this day…Notable numbers of Confederate States soldiers were recruited from the southern parts of all 3 States!
/ Most of Northern Ohio’s original setters came from Connecticut NOT the south. It wasn’t until the industrial revolution and the great migration that people from the south started settling here.
Richard: the reason they didn’t teach them what you’re claiming is because it’s untrue.
1) Ft. Sumter was the first target– a Federal fort — fired upon for 34 hours straight on April 11,1861.
2.) The south’s Constitutional Convention in Mobil Alabama opened in the Alabama senate in February 1861 precisely because Lincoln had been elected that fall; he was sworn in that March. It was not two separate actions; it was cause — Lincoln’s election, and effect — Secession.
3.) No. Go read the Articles of Secession, the Confederacy VP’s Cornerstone Speech, or almost any of the Declarations of Secession of the seceding states — as well as newspaper clippings of the period. They ALL name slavery as the cause — especially the Corner Stone Speech, In fact, it was Edward Ruffin, a southern Fire Eater (go Google the term,) , who had the distinction of being permitted to fire the first cannon on Ft. Sumter. at 7:31 A.M. Now stop denying your “heritage” and embrace it.
Many Northern man from Ohio went South and join the Confederate Army at end of war came back home to Ohio