CRESTVIEW — The City Council will continue discussion on the Confederate battle flag during its regular meeting, 6 p.m. Sept. 14 at city hall.
Council members set the continuation Thursday after an almost four-hour public hearing on the flag, which flutters above Confederate Park on East First Avenue. The site — which the Crestview Lions Club established in 1958 — includes a memorial to William "Bill" Lundy, considered Florida's last living Confederate veteran. Critics questioned the flag's presence on public property after Dylann Roof, a white man, admitted to fatally shooting nine black people at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. Before those shootings, the issue had been debated in Crestview since 1996.
On Thursday, people from Okaloosa, Santa Rosa, Escambia, Walton and Bay counties — many wearing T-shirts bearing the Confederate flag or displaying support for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People — packed Warriors Hall to standing room only. More than 60 people — mostly flag supporters — addressed the council.
Here are some of the comments:
●Martha Lundy, Laurel Hill: "If you take this flag down in Crestview, what's it gonna change? It's not gonna change the budget deficit; it's not gonna change the infrastructure problems that we have … it's not gonna change that we have an influx of drugs into our neighborhood; we have a child that got murdered in January from gang violence … we've got other things to worry about in Crestview, Florida, besides a flag — a 150-year-old flag, I might add — that flies over a memorial dedicated to soldiers of Florida …"
●Jesse Ladner, Crestview veteran: "This memorial is no less important than the memorial that sits in front of the Okaloosa County Courthouse … to remove the flag from the memorial would be desecration of the whole memorial. I do not want to live in a place where we desecrate memorials of United States veterans."
●Jerry Barnett, Crestview: "Because of one deranged mind in the state of South Carolina, now we have a big problem. How could something from another state cause such a big problem in a nice little city like Crestview?"
●John Menck, Heritage Not Hate, Panama City: "I don't believe that due to other people's lack of knowledge, and their ignorance of the flag, that that flag nor the monument should be removed … let's say your tie offends me, your hair offends me. Should you cut your hair? Should he remove his tie?"
●Lewis Jennings, with the Florida State Congress NAACP: "Remove the flag — not lower it — but remove it once and for all. It is time to acknowledge our past, atone our sins and work toward a better future."
●Ray Nelson, Crestview resident and NAACP Okaloosa president: "Should the city, the municipal entity, embrace a symbol that tore our country apart and killed tens of thousands? Your actions this evening will show if our city has matured and embraces all of our residents, or you continue like your predecessors — underestimating, undervaluing and marginalizing a segment of your taxpaying population who find the symbol an offense to true patriotism and inclusiveness."
●Edward Wallace Dawkins, Crestview: "I say to all who pass through the city of Crestview: White privilege is alive and well here. If you are a person of color, (the flag) says to them, 'You better know your place."
"There is only one flag that represents all Americans — and that's Old Glory."
●Scott Conrad, Fort Walton Beach: "We can talk about history all day but there are evil groups that are using this flag now, and really I don't want to see it anywhere. I don't want to see it on private land. I don't want to see it on public land."
For the most part, white people spoke in favor of the flag and black people spoke against the flag.
Then Theodore Rivers, a black man from Crestview, approached the podium.
"History is bleak on a lot of people's sides," he said. "But unfortunately, some people don't want to remember that part of their own history. They want to keep the positive," he said. "No one has the right to (avoid) the negative and only shine the light on the positive. We do it as African Americans all the time and try to shame white people. … this flag represents what America started from."
His comments drew applause, and one man said, "Somebody gets it."
Before Councilman Joe Blocker motioned to continue the discussion at a later date, city leaders shared their thoughts.
"Anything that becomes so divisive within a group of people within a certain radius — there's something wrong somewhere," Hayes said.
"I'm sorry that it appears a bunch of you people are still fighting the Civil War 150 years later," Councilman Bill Cox said.
"We love to see civic involvement and you need to understand that it's not easy for us up here … we owe it to you to make a decision; rather than do that this evening, we want to take the time to make the right decision," Councilman JB Whitten said.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Crestview's Confederate flag discussion to continue next month