SONS OF CONFEDERATE VETERANS       

N. B Forrest Camp #3  Chattanooga, Tennessee

N. B. Forrest

Forrest Battle Flag '61-'63

Bragg

Johnston

Hood

Polk

Hardee

Wheeler

Cheatham

Hill

Cleburne

 Longstreet

Battle Flag '64 -'65

 

 

RINGGOLD, GA DEPOT CONFEDERATE FLAG ISSUE

 

 

LAWSUIT FILED BY SCV GEORGIA DIVISION AND SOUTHERN LEGAL RESOURCE CENTER

Ringgold, GA April 26, 2008

 

The mayor and council of Ringgold are being sued by a southern heritage group because the city removed the Confederate Battle Flag from the Ringgold Depot.

 

The lawsuit was filed Friday by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, Georgia Division and the Col. Joseph T. McConnell Camp of the group. Assisting is the Southern Legal Resource Center based in Black Mountain, NC.

 

"It is not lost on Southerners who are keenly aware that suddenly everyone is allowed to be diverse except for them," Roger W. McCredie, executive director of the SLRC, said from the Catoosa County courthouse steps.

 

Wearing a bowtie with a Confederate flag pattern, Mr. McCredie said the resource center is the only legal organization that specializes in cases involving Southern culture and heritage.

 

The local group of the Sons of Confederate Veterans has protested for three years after city officials on a 3 to 2 vote in March 2005 agreed to take down in the wake of objections by some local black residents.

 

The familiar battle flag was replaced with the regimental flag of Confederate General Pat Cleburne, whose troops held off Union soldiers at Ringgold Gap in late 1863, allowing troops from the South to withdraw toward Dalton. The battle resulted in damage to the historic depot, which is now a history museum.

 

Ringgold city manager Dan Wright said on Friday that city officials had not yet seen the lawsuit.

 

Mr. McCredie said the resource center was formed to protect people who were being fired from jobs, punished at school, "discriminated against and worse, simply for doing nothing more than expressing their own heritage."

 

Kirk D. Lyons, chief trial council for the SLRC, said the regimental flag was "aunit flag with limited significance," is unrecognizable to most and thus "is not an appropriate flag to memorialize Confederate soldiers.

 

He noted the lawsuit does not seek punitive damages, but asks that the battle flag be returned to the pole and that the defendants pay court and attorney's fees.

 

"We believe (the battle flag) is an integral part of the memorial aspect of the depot," Mr. Lyons said.

 

 

SLRC GIVES CITY OF RINGGOLD 10 DAYS TO REPLACE FLAG

Ringgold, GA February 13, 2008

           The Southern Legal Resource Center has notified the Ringgold, GA, City Council that it will face legal action unless it replaces within 10 days a Confederate Battle Flag it removed from the Historic Ringgold Depot monument three years ago.

            The letter puts the city on notice that its clients, the Georgia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and its local camp in Ringgold, will “seek legal redress” if the flag is not replaced within the stated time period.

            The ultimatum was delivered after the city council failed to respond to a detailed January 15 letter from SLRC Executive Director Roger McCredie. That letter set forth reasons why the Battle Flag was the appropriate flag to be flown at the depot site and asked the Council to restore it to the flagpole from which it was removed in March of 2005. 

            At that time the Battle Flag, one of four flags displayed at the recently completed memorial site, was removed at the request of local NAACP members and was replaced by a so-called Hardee pattern flag on grounds that the Hardee flag was the one used by Confederate units at the Battle of Ringgold Gap; however, in its January letter the SLRC cited primary source material proving that other types of Confederate flags were present at that action.   McCredie’s letter further stated that the battle argument was moot anyway because the Depot monument was erected to honor Confederates who departed from Ringgold to serve throughout the Confederacy, and the Battle Flag, as a soldiers’ and later a veterans’ flag, was therefore the appropriate flag to display.  The SLRC also indicated that the city may have acted in violation of Georgia law by violating the integrity of the monument.

            The current letter was signed by SLRC Chief Trial Counsel Kirk D. Lyons, with Georgia attorneys Martin K. O’Toole and Daniel A. Coleman acting of counsel.

            The SLRC has been doing legal and historical research since last summer, in preparation for contacting the city council, McCredie said.

For additional information, contact:         

Roger McCredie

(828) 669-5189

exec@slrc-csa.org

http://www.slrc-csa.org/