Groups plan Confederate monument, large flag across from ASU

Members of three Confederate groups are planning to erect a monument featuring a large Confederate flag in front of Alabama State University, the nation’s oldest state-sponsored historically black college, the Tallassee Tribune reported on Wednesday.

According to the Tribune, leaders of the Tallassee chapter of Sons of Confederate Veterans, Tallassee Armory Guard and First Capitol Flaggers announced at a meeting this week that donations had been given to support the building of the site, which will be located along Interstate 85 on land donated by a Montgomery doctor.

The group wouldn’t provide the name of the doctor because it didn’t want people to “pitch a fit.”

A leader of the Tallassee Confederate Veterans group, Dana Jones, told the newspaper the flag pole would be 50 feet tall and that she hoped “everyone can see it.”

When WACQ owner Fred Randall Hughey told the gathered crowd where the flag would be located – directly across from ASU – a loud cheer went up.

When asked about the message the flag’s location might send, given the current racial climate in the country, Jones said her group had no intentions of antagonizing.

“We are descendants of Confederate veterans,” she said. “Our lives matter just as much.”

A message left for ASU officials seeking comment was not immediately returned.

Jones said the organizations are “about halfway” to their goal of $3,000 to cover the monument’s cost.

The displaying of Confederate flags on government property came under in June last year following a church shooting in Charleston, S.C. A week after the shooting, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley had the flags removed from the capitol building.

Bentley called it “the right thing to do.”