The Southern Legal Resource Center

eU P D A T E

Friday, April 04, 2008

P ublished by the Southern Legal Resource Center

P.O. Box 1235, Black Mountain, NC 28711/(828) 669-5189/slrc@slrc-csa.org

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SLRC DEMANDS ADMISSION OF EVIDENCE

WITHHELD BY BURLESON DEFENDANTS

 

DALLAS , TX – The SLRC has filed a series of motions aimed at forcing attorneys for Burleson Independent School District to surrender a crucial piece of evidence they did not provide during the case's discovery process late last year.

 

At issue are an e-mail the school's principal sent to faculty and staff regarding the case, and some responses to that e-mail.  “Obviously we can't go into detail about this material, but it is definitely a smoking gun and would seriously compromise the school's main argument as to why they banned Confederate symbols,” said SLRC Chief Trial Counsel Kirk Lyons.  The Burleson case centers around two Burleson High coeds who were suspended for coming to school with Confederate flag-patterned purses they had received as Christmas presents.

 

A Burleson High School official, who has since retired, provided the SLRC with his own copy of the principal's e-mail and a sworn affidavit testifying that the e-mail is authentic.  The school's attorneys, on learning that the SLRC was in possession of a copy of the e-mail, shrilly objected that it was privileged information and not admissible. However, the SLRC immediately filed a motion to reopen discovery, a second motion to compel the school's attorney to turn over all responses to the e-mail, and a third motion that the court impose sanctions (financial and other penalties) on the attorneys for not having provided during discovery, which is the pre-trial period during which opposing sides in a lawsuit make documents and testimony supporting their positions available to each other.

 

SLRC Executive Director Roger McCredie said, “That strange high-pitched noise you hear coming from the direction of Burleson is weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

 

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RINGGOLD ATTORNEY CLAIMS BATTLE FLAG AT DEPOT WAS “TEMPORARY”

 

BLACK MOUNTAIN , NC – An attorney representing the City of Ringgold , Georgia , has informed the SLRC that the Confederate Battle Flag was never intended to be a permanent fixture as part of the Confederate memorial area at Ringgold Depot.

 

“The Confederate Battle Flag has been flown at the monument temporarily on a few prior occasions for special events in years past.  However, it has never been considered by the City to be a permanent part of the monument,” attorney Stephen B. Farrow said in a letter to the SLRC.

 

Farrow's letter was apparently intended as a belated response to two letters the SLRC sent to Ringgold's City Council.  The first letter explained in detail why the Battle Flag was the appropriate Confederate flag to be flown at the Depot memorial.  When that letter went unanswered, the SLRC sent a second letter demanding the flag's restoration to its place.  SLRC Executive Director Roger McCredie said that Farrow's reply misstates the case and ignores primary evidence.  “I can't tell whether Mr. Farrow just didn't do his homework or whether he thinks we didn't do ours,” McCredie said.  “There is abundant documentation to show that the Battle Flag was intended from the very beginning of the project to be a permanent fixture at the memorial, it was installed as such when the project was completed and it belongs there now, despite all the shucking and jiving to the contrary.”

 

Four flagpoles were erected at the Depot memorial when it was completed in early 2005.  The modern United States and Georgia flags and an 1863-pattern Stars and Stripes fly from three of the poles.  At the time the display was finished, the Battle Flag was installed on the fourth pole.  Concrete markers at the base of each pole describe the flags. A few weeks after the flagpoles were erected, representatives of the NAACP and others appeared before Ringgold City Council to protest the Battle Flag's presence.  The City then removed the Battle Flag and substituted the blue flag of Gen. Patrick Cleburne's corps, which was present at the Battle of Ringgold Gap.  The Battle Flag's proponents maintain that the substitution was an act of political correctness that amounts to interfering with a memorial site.

 

The SLRC has said that it will pursue legal remedies on behalf of its client, the Georgia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

 

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Get your Southern patriotism on the record!

Sign the CSA National Origin affidavit!

 

Some years ago the SLRC suggested that the descendants of those Southerners who were citizens of the Confederacy – regardless of race or ancestral national origin – make up a distinct ethnic group as fully valid as any other ethnic group in America , and just as fully entitled to protection under law.  We refer to this group as Confederate-Southern Americans (CSA).  For some time we have made a downloadable Confederate Southern American National Origin Affidavit available on our website and we receive signed and completed statements at the rate of two or three a month. 

           

Now, however, we are starting a campaign to get as many Southerners as possible on the record as saying they consider themselves members of this distinct group.  Our intent is to amass as many such affidavits as possible over the next several months and use them as the basis for requesting national and international recognition of CSA's.

 

Think what it would mean to have our flags, symbols, music, traditions and customs, and our right to honor them, fully protected under law.  Please go to our website and download a copy of the affidavit.    If you are a member of a Southern heritage organization, make as many copies as you need and circulate them at your next meeting.  Give or send copies to your relatives or friends.  Do it now.  “The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.”

 

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If you have a stake in Southern heritage and culture, and are looking for a meaningful way to honor and protect them, please give generously to the Southern Legal Resource Center. With your help we can continue our aggressive efforts to secure the rights of all Southerners to express pride in their regional identity without fear of ridicule or reprisal, as should be the case for all Americans.

 

 

The Southern Legal Resource Center, Inc.   Roger W. McCredie …………………………………….............. Executive Director Kirk D. Lyons………………………………Staff Attorney and Chief Trial Counsel Allison J. Schaum….…………………………………………………….Case Manager Betty D. Tate.…………………………………………………………..Office Manager   BOARD OF DIRECTORS Dewey Barber.………………………………………………………….Odum, Georgia Gene Hough, Attorney.………………………………… Oklahoma City , Oklahoma Van R. Irion, Attorney...........………………………………… Knoxville, Tennessee Judge Robert N. Jones, Jr….…………………………………………… Austin , Texas Neill H. Payne, DC……………………………… .Black Mountain , North Carolina Lourie A. Salley, III, Attorney (Chairman) ………….. Lexington , South Carolina Rick D. Wilkerson …..…….………………………Black Mountain, North Carolina Ann Rives Zappa ………………………………………. Chapel Hill , North Carolina

 

 

The Southern Legal Resource Center is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization, and contributions to it are fully tax deductible. Credit card and PayPal donations may be made at our website by clicking on “How You Can Help.” Checks payable to the Southern Legal Resource Center should be mailed to P.O. Box 1235 , Black Mountain , NC 28711 . “Thumbs Up for Dixie ” stickers are available for SLRC and local heritage fundraising projects. Contact Allison Schaum for details at slrc@crystalink.com or (864) 476-0656. If you wish to receive our weekly e-mail update, contact us at slrc@slrc-csa.org.