J
John B.
Guest
Flying in the Face of Controversy
In Md. Town, Confederate Flag Is a Symbol of Pride for Some, Terror
for Others
By Mary Otto
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 22, 2008; B01
CUMBERLAND, Md. -- This city nestled in the gray hills of Western
Maryland was once a key railroad hub for the Union Army, beset by
Confederate raiders. Today, the rebel flag is again stirring trouble.
A high school principal's recent decision to ban wearing or displaying
the Confederate flag, adopted by some white residents as a symbol of
their history, has inflamed an already tense debate over racial
sensitivity and freedom of speech.
Deana Bryant allowed her 16-year-old son to wear a shirt emblazoned
with the flag to school one day last week in open defiance of the ban.
Speaking from behind the grocery counter where she works, Bryant said
the flag is not about racism.
"It's his heritage," she said, her blue eyes flashing.
The same day, Lakeal Ellis, a nurse, kept her three daughters home
from Fort Hill High School. Shaken by the escalating tension, they
packed their clothes. The African American family came here a little
more than a year ago from the District hoping to find better schools
and a quieter life.
The girls were getting good grades at the high school. But after
enduring racial slurs and harassment, sometimes at the hands of youths
with Confederate flags, the Ellis family decided to give up and return
to the District.
"Everything is over with Cumberland," Ellis said. "It's not okay for
my kids."
At Fort Hill, the racial taunts had been going on throughout the
school year, but the problems boiled over after a boy made racist
remarks to one of Ellis's daughters in the cafeteria line this month,
she said. Her daughter and the boy were suspended after an argument.
In response, some students started displaying the flag on their
clothes and trucks in solidarity with the boy.
The principal banned the display of the flag, but tensions continued
to rise. Police stepped up their presence.
"The flag turned into a weapon," said Allegany County Superintendent
Bill AuMiller, who met last week with parents and students who
supported wearing the flag.
"They have a First Amendment right to wear it," AuMiller said, but
using it to harass and intimidate students "crossed the line." He has
asked students who display the flag "to voluntarily refrain until
things cool down."
At a time when Democratic presidential candidate and Sen. Barack
Obama, an Illinois Democratic candidate for president, has challenged
the nation to transcend racial divides, the dispute at Fort Hill High
School, named for a small fortification occupied by the Union Army,
harks back to the past.
Flag fans often speak of their banner as a reminder of local history,
a symbol of rebellion against authority and political correctness, and
pride in their rural lifestyle. But one man's symbol of pride is
another man's symbol of terror, said Charles Woods, a African American
leader in Cumberland.
"You talk about that flag, the ugly side of people will rear its head
up," he said. "That flag must be removed from school property."
Carl O. Snowden, civil rights director for the state attorney
general's office, has received a complaint from the state and local
NAACP and the Ellis family. He said he is closely monitoring the
situation in Allegany County.
In January, members of several black and white congregations gathered
at Cumberland's First Presbyterian Church for a service to commemorate
the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The event was warmly received, said
John Dillon, First Presbyterian's pastor. Dillon said he believes that
racial divisions persist in the wider community.
"I think the vast majority of racism grows in ignorance, fear and
poverty," he said. "We've got ignorance, fear and poverty in this
community."
In many ways, this isolated spot is more a part of Appalachia than the
rest of Maryland. President Lyndon B. Johnson acknowledged as much
with a visit to Fort Hill High School in 1964, during a War on Poverty
tour.
He spoke of job creation in a place where about one-quarter of
residents were living in poverty. About a third of working men had
solid jobs in area glass, rubber and textile plants. Since the
factories closed in the 1980s, educational and health-care facilities
and sprawling state and federal prison complexes have become major
employers.
Efforts to draw tourists to local cultural and historic sites have
been progressing, but change has been slow in coming.
After Ellis's daughters spoke publicly about their problems at a
school board meeting last week, she kept them home from school the
next day, worried about their safety.
That day, the girls said, they saw two men, one with a shaved head, in
front of their house taking pictures.
They called the police and their mother at work.
She told them to gather their belongings, that they were leaving. The
men taking pictures, Ellis said, were "the straw that broke the
camel's back."
She contacted Norma Blacke Bourdeau, president of the local NAACP, and
the Rev. Alfred Deas Jr. of Cumberland's historic Metropolitan AME
Church and told them of her decision.
The girls' great-aunt swiftly packed their clothes, and Deas sent a
church van to whisk them to the basement of the old church, built by
freed slaves in the 19th century.
The move was done with cellphones instead of colorful quilts hung on
clotheslines to mark the way to freedom. Blacke Bourdeau acknowledged
the scene was reminiscent of the underground railroad, the nervous
family, quietly and swiftly leaving town with the help of a network of
volunteers.
"We're still living the history, which is why people are so ready to
say 'No more, no more, no more,' " Blacke Bourdeau said.
Police said they were not able to substantiate whether the men outside
the Ellis home posed a credible threat. The behavior of the men "was
suspicious," Snowden said.
Ellis said she and her children are resettling in the District and
trying to determine how to proceed with their lives.
But the troubles in Allegany, which is more than 90 percent white,
reveal deeper divisions that must be addressed, Snowden said.
"This is a time when leadership is very important," he said.
AuMiller said the school system will hold sensitivity training and
cultural-awareness programs for middle and high schools.
Deas said he and other church leaders are also pressing for a
community-wide dialogue.
"We have no reason to believe it's not going forward," he said.
For some, the feelings only seem to be hardening.
Brandon Weir, 17, a masonry student at the county career and technical
high school, said he was ordered earlier this month by school
officials to remove a Confederate flag from his truck.
"They said I was making the school look bad," Weir said.
That evening, in front of their home, his father, Keith, helped him
put back the Confederate flag, which he flies from the truck along
with large American and prisoner-of-war flags.
Keith Weir said that he has raised his children to respect all people
but that he is not going to be persuaded by public officials to remove
the flag.
"Get her up there, buddy," the elder Weir said. "My flag is gonna fly."
In Md. Town, Confederate Flag Is a Symbol of Pride for Some, Terror
for Others
By Mary Otto
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 22, 2008; B01
CUMBERLAND, Md. -- This city nestled in the gray hills of Western
Maryland was once a key railroad hub for the Union Army, beset by
Confederate raiders. Today, the rebel flag is again stirring trouble.
A high school principal's recent decision to ban wearing or displaying
the Confederate flag, adopted by some white residents as a symbol of
their history, has inflamed an already tense debate over racial
sensitivity and freedom of speech.
Deana Bryant allowed her 16-year-old son to wear a shirt emblazoned
with the flag to school one day last week in open defiance of the ban.
Speaking from behind the grocery counter where she works, Bryant said
the flag is not about racism.
"It's his heritage," she said, her blue eyes flashing.
The same day, Lakeal Ellis, a nurse, kept her three daughters home
from Fort Hill High School. Shaken by the escalating tension, they
packed their clothes. The African American family came here a little
more than a year ago from the District hoping to find better schools
and a quieter life.
The girls were getting good grades at the high school. But after
enduring racial slurs and harassment, sometimes at the hands of youths
with Confederate flags, the Ellis family decided to give up and return
to the District.
"Everything is over with Cumberland," Ellis said. "It's not okay for
my kids."
At Fort Hill, the racial taunts had been going on throughout the
school year, but the problems boiled over after a boy made racist
remarks to one of Ellis's daughters in the cafeteria line this month,
she said. Her daughter and the boy were suspended after an argument.
In response, some students started displaying the flag on their
clothes and trucks in solidarity with the boy.
The principal banned the display of the flag, but tensions continued
to rise. Police stepped up their presence.
"The flag turned into a weapon," said Allegany County Superintendent
Bill AuMiller, who met last week with parents and students who
supported wearing the flag.
"They have a First Amendment right to wear it," AuMiller said, but
using it to harass and intimidate students "crossed the line." He has
asked students who display the flag "to voluntarily refrain until
things cool down."
At a time when Democratic presidential candidate and Sen. Barack
Obama, an Illinois Democratic candidate for president, has challenged
the nation to transcend racial divides, the dispute at Fort Hill High
School, named for a small fortification occupied by the Union Army,
harks back to the past.
Flag fans often speak of their banner as a reminder of local history,
a symbol of rebellion against authority and political correctness, and
pride in their rural lifestyle. But one man's symbol of pride is
another man's symbol of terror, said Charles Woods, a African American
leader in Cumberland.
"You talk about that flag, the ugly side of people will rear its head
up," he said. "That flag must be removed from school property."
Carl O. Snowden, civil rights director for the state attorney
general's office, has received a complaint from the state and local
NAACP and the Ellis family. He said he is closely monitoring the
situation in Allegany County.
In January, members of several black and white congregations gathered
at Cumberland's First Presbyterian Church for a service to commemorate
the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The event was warmly received, said
John Dillon, First Presbyterian's pastor. Dillon said he believes that
racial divisions persist in the wider community.
"I think the vast majority of racism grows in ignorance, fear and
poverty," he said. "We've got ignorance, fear and poverty in this
community."
In many ways, this isolated spot is more a part of Appalachia than the
rest of Maryland. President Lyndon B. Johnson acknowledged as much
with a visit to Fort Hill High School in 1964, during a War on Poverty
tour.
He spoke of job creation in a place where about one-quarter of
residents were living in poverty. About a third of working men had
solid jobs in area glass, rubber and textile plants. Since the
factories closed in the 1980s, educational and health-care facilities
and sprawling state and federal prison complexes have become major
employers.
Efforts to draw tourists to local cultural and historic sites have
been progressing, but change has been slow in coming.
After Ellis's daughters spoke publicly about their problems at a
school board meeting last week, she kept them home from school the
next day, worried about their safety.
That day, the girls said, they saw two men, one with a shaved head, in
front of their house taking pictures.
They called the police and their mother at work.
She told them to gather their belongings, that they were leaving. The
men taking pictures, Ellis said, were "the straw that broke the
camel's back."
She contacted Norma Blacke Bourdeau, president of the local NAACP, and
the Rev. Alfred Deas Jr. of Cumberland's historic Metropolitan AME
Church and told them of her decision.
The girls' great-aunt swiftly packed their clothes, and Deas sent a
church van to whisk them to the basement of the old church, built by
freed slaves in the 19th century.
The move was done with cellphones instead of colorful quilts hung on
clotheslines to mark the way to freedom. Blacke Bourdeau acknowledged
the scene was reminiscent of the underground railroad, the nervous
family, quietly and swiftly leaving town with the help of a network of
volunteers.
"We're still living the history, which is why people are so ready to
say 'No more, no more, no more,' " Blacke Bourdeau said.
Police said they were not able to substantiate whether the men outside
the Ellis home posed a credible threat. The behavior of the men "was
suspicious," Snowden said.
Ellis said she and her children are resettling in the District and
trying to determine how to proceed with their lives.
But the troubles in Allegany, which is more than 90 percent white,
reveal deeper divisions that must be addressed, Snowden said.
"This is a time when leadership is very important," he said.
AuMiller said the school system will hold sensitivity training and
cultural-awareness programs for middle and high schools.
Deas said he and other church leaders are also pressing for a
community-wide dialogue.
"We have no reason to believe it's not going forward," he said.
For some, the feelings only seem to be hardening.
Brandon Weir, 17, a masonry student at the county career and technical
high school, said he was ordered earlier this month by school
officials to remove a Confederate flag from his truck.
"They said I was making the school look bad," Weir said.
That evening, in front of their home, his father, Keith, helped him
put back the Confederate flag, which he flies from the truck along
with large American and prisoner-of-war flags.
Keith Weir said that he has raised his children to respect all people
but that he is not going to be persuaded by public officials to remove
the flag.
"Get her up there, buddy," the elder Weir said. "My flag is gonna fly."
