This stone block on the lawn of the Limestone County Courthouse was erected in the early 1900s to commemorate the surrender of a Union officer to Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest. A small Confederate flag was recently planted near the monument and removed as was another commemorating Limestone County’s Civil War role. A Gadsden-based group is planning a rally to demand the permanent return of the flags.

A “flagging” rally is scheduled for July 17 in Athens in response to a recent request by the Limestone County NAACP for the County Commission to remove Confederate flags from the courthouse lawn.

The Alabama Flaggers — a self-proclaimed “Southern heritage” group based in Gadsden — left a voicemail with The News Courier over the weekend, mentioning the group plans to rally in Athens next month, bringing Confederate flags of all kinds, if the memorial flags are not replaced.

Justin Burton, director of the group, confirmed the plans with The News Courier on Monday, saying the ceremony will start 11 a.m. that day to correct what he said is an incorrect narrative in history.

“They tend to teach the wrong history in schools,” he said. “(Removing the flags) is hypocritical and it’s brainwashing history.”

Burton and his wife Freda lead the Alabama Flaggers. Freda has even written a book about what she said is the misrepresentation and misinterpretation of the “stars and bars.”

“It’s actually a religious flag,” she said. “It only flew four years, it had nothing to do with slavery. This flag doesn’t hurt anyone.”

Later this month, the Burtons and the Alabama Flaggers will join other pro-Confederacy groups for a flag rally in Union Springs in Bullock County, where a prominent black attorney was allegedly seen removing Confederate flags from a local cemetery. The Burtons said they plan to file for an arrest warrant against Myron Penn and his wife when they arrive in Bullock County next weekend. They are also seeking Penn’s removal from the Alabama State Bar Association.

“If Limestone County watches what happens in Union Springs, I think they’ll want to put the flags back,” Freda Burton said Monday, adding the Alabama Flaggers will seek the arrest of all involved in the removal of flags in Limestone County. “I’m sorry, but we’re tired of being stepped on. We intend to preserve our history, our cemeteries and our monuments.”

Unlawful

The beef the Burtons have with the removal of flags is it is perceived to dishonor Confederate veterans and the Southern past.

Removing flags also violates state law under Alabama Code, the Burtons said.

ALA CODE § 13A-7-23.1 reads: (a) Any person who willfully or maliciously injures, defaces, removes or destroys any tomb, monument, gravestone or other memorial of the dead, or any fence or any inclosure (sic) about any tomb, monument, gravestone or memorial, or who willfully and wrongfully destroys, removes, cuts, breaks or injures any tree, shrub, plant, flower, decoration, or other real or personal property within any cemetery or graveyard shall be guilty of a Class A misdemeanor.

(c) The provisions of subsections (a) and (b) of this section shall not apply to any person holding a permit issued by the Alabama Historical Commission pursuant to subsection (d) of this section.

(d) The Alabama Historical Commission, to provide for the lawful preservation, investigation, restoration, or relocation of human burial remains, human skeletal remains, or funerary objects, shall promulgate rules and regulations for the issuance of a permit and may issue a permit to persons or companies who seek to restore, preserve or relocate human burial remains, human skeletal remains, funerary objects, or otherwise disturb, a place of burial.

Limestone County and Athens officials said they are unaware of any laws being broken by removing the flags from the courthouse lawn.

Not racist

While some pro-white groups and white Southern nationalist groups are planning to attend the rallies, the Burtons insist what they do and what they stand for is not anti-black.

“We’re not even racist, we have black people in our group whose ancestors fought for the South in the Civil War,” Freda said.

In fact, the Burtons said the black leaders in Union Springs and the Alabama NAACP are actually discriminating against white Southerners.

“It’s racial discrimination,” Justin said. “We are not racist or radical.”

Limestone’s response

So far, an event page on the group’s Facebook site only marks 14 definite attendees.

“We do already have quite a few people who are attending,” Justin said. “It’s kind of building up at this point.”

Justin said he had called Athens Mayor Ronnie Marks over the weekend. Marks said Monday he didn’t deny there might have been a call, but he hadn’t received any messages from the Burtons. Limestone County Commission is in charge of the courthouse grounds, but any group planning to assemble on the streets of Athens will have to go through the proper channels, Marks said.

“If they do plan to come, they need to be coordinating with our police chief,” he said.

Athens Police Chief Floyd Johnson said he had not yet seen a request for a permit from Alabama Flaggers.

“My view is you have the right to have public (discourse) as long as you don’t cause trouble,” he said. “We try to provide everyone with the equal opportunity to speak, whether you agree with it or not. It’s a free permit — you just have to make an application.”

Limestone County Commission Chairman Mark Yarbrough authorized the removal of the flags last month, shortly after Confederate Memorial Day. He said Monday he’d never heard of the Alabama Flaggers or their plans to rally in Athens.