Confederate flag raised, felled, raised again in Pittsboro
A Confederate flag that has risen, been knocked down and raised again over the past two days is fanning protests in Pittsboro.
The flag first appeared Thursday across the street from Horton Middle School, which served as the all-black high school in Chatham County during the days of segregation and is named for George Moses Horton, a slave from North Carolina who was a poet and wrote a book called "The Hope of Liberty."
Flag supporters, who declined to speak for the record with WRAL News, said they are fighting back against a plan to remove a Confederate monument from outside the Chatham County Courthouse.
The county Board of Commissioners decided last month to give the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which donated the statue to the county in 1907, until Oct. 1 to come up with a plan for its future. If nothing is done by Nov. 1, the commissioners said, they will consider the statue as trespassing on public property and make their own plans to remove it.
On Thursday night, someone cut the metal flagpole, knocked it and the Confederate flag to the ground. So, supporters spent much of Friday at the site with tools to repair the damage and had the flag flying again late in the afternoon.
Nobody has claimed responsibility for removing the flag, which was on private property.
Protests between those who support and oppose the Confederate flag and monument continued Saturday, with at least one person taken into police custody.
Two groups, the "Virginia Flaggers" and ACTBAC of North Carolina, take credit on Facebook for the flag raising.
"We are thrilled at the reaction and support from local citizens, who are fed up with the attempts by activist liberals to eradicate local history and disrespect their veterans," Virginia Flaggers wrote in a Facebook post.
Former Pittsboro mayor Randy Voller said the groups are trying to provoke reaction by flying a Confederate flag where they put it.
"They decided to put it right across from Horton Middle School, where children go in – white children, black children, brown children, a diverse population goes here," Voller said. "This is not playing to the best of us. This is a message of divisiveness and hate."
A couple of weeks ago, the groups erected a large Confederate flag along U.S. Highway 64 Business, just east of Pittsboro. They said in Facebook posts that they're getting a site ready for a third Confederate flag, with as many as five planned around the county.
"If, in fact, the issue with the monument had not become this flashpoint, we would not see these flags going up in town," Voller said. "This is their response. This is obviously a long-term play."
