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Plan To Display Huge Confederate Symbol Raises Red Flags
Rendering from Sons of Confederate Veterans
The Confederate war memorial under construction at U.S. 92 and Interstate 4 will feature a 30-by-50-foot flag on a 139-foot pole anchored in 16 tons of granite set in concrete.
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Published: June 2, 2008
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EUREKA SPRINGS - Near Interstate 4. On a spit of property in the shadow of Interstate 75. On the north side of U.S. 92 -- the battle flag of the Southern rebellion shall rise again, at least that's the objective of the flag raisers, descendants of Confederate soldiers.
Under a sweltering late morning sun today, Marion Lambert, a welder from Brandon who is a fierce defender of Southern heritage, watched as a half-dozen workers got the site ready for 16 tons of granite set in concrete that will be a memorial to the lost cause.
"All the labor here is donated," he said. "That portable toilet – we are getting that for $5 for the duration."
He hedged when asked how much the Confederate war memorial will cost but did say the flagpole alone, all 139 feet of it, not including the 14 feet piercing the sandy soil, cost about $18,000.
The 50-by-30-foot Confederate battle flag -- the flag of the Army of Northern Virginia -- will fly atop the pole, flapping at hundreds of thousands of motorists passing by each day.
Lambert said the memorial is the fifth such site in the state. It's a part of a Sons of Confederate Veterans program called Flags Across Florida, which he runs.
The memorial will be dedicated on April 26, the date recognized by many in Florida as Confederate Memorial Day, but the flag might be flying before that, he said.
Lambert discounts the criticism that the banner is a symbol of racism and hatred. People who have that opinion don't know the flag's history, he said.
"We have a couple of American flags in this country," he said. "This is one of them." He said the flag represents the courage of soldiers who fought under it. They included three of his ancestors, he said.
"This flag was a soldier's flag," he said. "It stands for American liberty."
The Sons of Confederate Veterans, an organization that formed more than 100 years ago, owns the property and wants to establish a lighted park and center that would memorialize the war lost by the South in 1865.
Lambert said the park will include 30 bronze plaques set in granite telling Civil War stories. The flag, he said, "is the eye-catcher," with the ultimate goal of drawing people to the memorial for a history lesson with a Southern slant.
The fundraising effort mounted by the Sons of Confederate Veterans for the Hillsborough site began two years ago.
If the idea is exposure, they'll get it. About 200,000 vehicles a day pass the spot, according to the organization's Web site.
Hillsborough County Commissioner Kevin White had been out of town and had not heard about the Rebel flag, he said.
"I'm very surprised to hear that," he said this morning. "It appears that that will be a very disturbing issue. It's a symbol [of racism] for a great number of people in our community.
"I realize that everybody's heritage needs to be respected and displayed in their own way," he said, "but this is not the way to bring the community together in a healing process. It's still an open wound."
The property was turned over to the group four years ago by a sympathetic landowner, according to a fundraising letter written in 2006 by John W. Adams, a lieutenant commander living in Deltona.
"Since January of 2004," Adams wrote in the letter, "we have meticulously done our work to acquire proper approval for site development from governmental planning and growth officials in Hillsborough County and to have the property legally zoned as a legal non-conforming lot for a 'lighted public park.' "
He said the Federal Aviation Administration has given its approval for a 139-foot flagpole, which will fly a 30-by-50-foot Confederate battle flag with "proper and sufficient lighting for nighttime illumination."
"The site will be dedicated to the Confederate Nation of 1861-1865," he wrote, "to its people, to its president, to the soldiers, sailors and marines of that nation and to the Cause of Freedom for which they fought."
In the most recent online issue of The Florida Blockade Runner, the organization's newsletter, Florida Division Commander Douglas D. Dawson urges members to donate so the Tampa site can be completed.
"We must raise money to pay for the pole and the shipping from Fort Worth, Texas," he writes. The cost of the pole and shipping it: $24,000.
The Florida division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans is a nonprofit corporation that has 53 chapters and more than 1,500 members, the organization's Web site states.
The Florida contingent is involved in numerous projects, including oversight of Confederate gravesite locations and preservation and conservation of the state's Confederate flag collection.
Reporter Keith Morelli can be reached at (813) 259-7760 or kmorelli@tampatrib.com.
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