VIRGINIA: Candidate for Governor Says Nothing Racist About Confederate Flag

Virginia gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart, a Republican, embraced the Confederate flag and Virginia’s history of defending slavery on Saturday, using multiple phrases that indicate his appeal to white supremacist voters.

Republican candidate for Governor of Virginia, Corey Stewart, gestures at a campaign kickoff rally at a resturaunt in Occoquan, Va., Monday, Jan. 23, 2017. CREDIT: AP Photo/Steve Helber

Republican candidate for Governor of Virginia, Corey Stewart, gestures at a campaign kickoff rally at a resturaunt in Occoquan, Va., Monday, Jan. 23, 2017. CREDIT: AP Photo/Steve Helber

Stewart championed Confederate leaders Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson and repeatedly emphasized Virginia’s “heritage.”

“It’s the state of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. That is our heritage. It is what makes us Virginia,” Stewart said, speaking at the “Old South Ball” in Danville, Virginia, in a video posted by Blue Virginia. “If you take that away, we lose our identity.”

Maintaining white identity has been a theme of white supremacist movements. “Over time, white supremacist ideology evolved to reflect the new social and political reality,” writes the Anti-Defamation League in its primer on white supremacy. “Essentially, many white supremacists changed their frame of reference from fighting to maintain white dominance to fighting to prevent white extinction.”

Stewart has aligned himself with the alt-right, a branch of the party tied to white nationalism.

In a Reddit forum earlier this month, he referred to his Republican primary adversary, Ed Gillespie, as a “cuckservative,” which Fox News notes “has been used by the so-called ‘alt-right’ movement to label any fellow Republican or conservative as someone who appears to disavow their conservative credentials, derived from the term “cuckold.”

ThinkProgress does not use the term alt-right, which was coined by the people it usually describes, who are white nationalists and white supremacists.

Stewart has already been in the news recently for his virulent opposition to plans in Charlottesville to take down a statue of Lee. As governor, he said on Saturday, “Over my dead body… are we going to take down the statue of Robert E. Lee.” The Charlottesville city council voted earlier this year to remove the statue.

“I’m proud to be next to the Confederate flag,” Stewart said. “That flag is not about racism, folks, it’s not about hatred, it’s not about slavery. It’s about our heritage. It’s time that we stop running away from our heritage. It’s time that we embrace our heritage, we embrace our history, and we take back Virginia.”

The reference to taking back Virginia could also be read as a dogwhistle to white supremacists, who have repeatedly used the expression “take back” America as a rationale for racist and xenophobic policies.

Two Virginia restaurants recently canceled Stewart campaign plans for an anti-immigration rally. Stewart blamed the cancellations on “George Soros and his paid agitators.”

Stewart was formerly co-chair of the Trump presidential campaign in Virginia, before he was fired for participating in an anti-RNC rally in October.

–thinkprogress.org

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SOUTH CAROLINA: Confederate Group Displays Flags Above I-26

SUMMERVILLE – The night before a handful of people displayed Confederate flags above Interstate 26, Louis Smith was startled to read a warning that seemed ominous to him given the context of history.

“You haven’t won. You’ve awakened a sleeping giant,” read a Facebook post by the S.C. Secessionist Party, which was accompanied by a photo of Summerville’s town sign that had been edited to include two Confederate flags. Smith couldn’t help but think of stories he’d heard of his great-grandfather hiding while Ku Klux Klan members circled his Summerville home many years ago.

The Facebook post was a preview to what the Secessionist Party called the “first flagging of Summerville,” during which members held Confederate flags on North Main Street over I-26 on Sunday morning. They had a message for Smith: “We don’t want him to think he runs the show,” said party chairman James Bessenger.

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Confederate flag
Members of the S.C. Secessionist Party display Confederate flags over Interstate 26 near Summerville on Sunday. Provided/Shakem Amen Akhet

Smith, the founder of the Community Resource Center, knew that his plan to ask Town Council to ban Confederate flags from parades and events would not go over quietly. Tensions between him and Confederate groups have been brewing for months. Things escalated after the Sons of Confederate Veterans handed out Confederate flags and information about their organization at Flowertown Festival.

Smith was alert Sunday as he kept watch from the Community Resource Center office after hearing rumors that people might protest outside his nonprofit. When no one had showed up by noon, he seemed relieved. He said he’s recently received veiled threats, and he was the subject of a Secessionist Party Facebook post on Friday that referred to him as a “racist.”

“The amount of stress and the amount of threats and vitriol that have been thrown toward me, it feels like they are trying to resurrect the Civil War again. I am very frightful, yes. I am very frightful for my life,” he said.

But, Smith added, he isn’t standing down.

A few miles away, drivers exiting the interstate cranked their necks to get a look at the men holding large flags on the bridge sidewalk. Several motorists honked and waved, while at least one driver showed opposition by hurling a drink toward the group.

The Secessionist Party has made a Sunday tradition of displaying flags in The Battery in downtown Charleston since the Confederate flag was removed from Statehouse grounds in July 2015. Bessenger said whether the group returns to Summerville will be dependent on Town Council’s response to Smith’s request.

“If for whatever reason the city takes any negative position on allowing flags at festivals, Summerville’s gonna see more flags than they know what to do with,” he said.

For the last several years, the Sons of Confederate Veterans has brought a replica of the H.L. Hunley submarine to Flowertown, setting up in front of its tent on Main Street. Smith, bothered that the display includes Confederate flags, reached out to festival organizer Summerville Family YMCA this year to inquire whether the group had a business license permit.

The group set up a tent on private property. Smith heard that members handed out to Confederate flags to kids on the sidewalk. Witnesses said there was at least one confrontation at the group’s tent.

Smith and representatives from area advocacy groups had originally planned to address council at this week’s meeting. They’ve decided to postpone their request until May after learning that council will issue a proclamation to commemorate the Holocaust on Thursday.