Confederate group inducts black member

Induction follows controversy over license plate symbols

By JOHN HENDREN

Associated Press Writer

BALTIMORE (AP) – With the induction of Anthony Cohen into the Sons of Confederate Veterans on Saturday, the historical group made a new foray into the territory of its adversaries.

Bristling under the criticism of civil rights advocates who call them bearers of a racist symbol, the historical organization raised the Confederate flag, sang “Dixie” and added the first black member to its ranks.

“I came to join the Sons of Confederate Veterans to honor my family history and to honor American history,” said Cohen, a historian descended from black and white Confederate soldiers who is writing a book on the underground railroad.

The induction, which came during an annual Lee and Jackson Day ceremony, carried new meaning after Maryland officials that kore are on literate bates flag made specially for the historical group.

Black state legislators said the plates paid tribute to racism.

“A dark cloud cast its shadow across the Free State,” said Patrick J. Griffin III, head of the Maryland chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

A crowd of about 300, many of chem dressed in Confederate battle garb, cheered and gave rebel yells before twin statues of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall”‘ Jackson.

“The question I’m often asked is why I would be associated with a symbol that many African-Americans consider racist,” Cohen said. “The Sons of Confedrate Veterans fly the flag to honor our history. They are not a racist organization.”

Cohen last summer walked from Sandy Spring to Ontario, Canada, covering a path abolitionists used to hide slaves that escaped from the South.

Black legislators convinced the state Motor Vehicles Administration earlier this month to recall he Confederate tags and replace hem with plates bearing no Confederate symbol.

“Maryland is not the state of Strom Thurmond. Maryland is not a state of the Deep South,” state Sen. Larry Young, who led the charge to recall the tags, said earlier this month. “We are a state of racial harmony.”

The Saturday ceremony departed strongly from Confederate gatherings of the Civil War era. Celebrants dipped the Confederate “stars and bars” and other flags as the American flag was raised while Peter Johnston of the Sons of Union Veterans said the Pledge of Allegiance.

Immediately afterward, those in attendance made a, similar pledge, to the Confederate Hag and swore their “undying devotion to the cause for which it stands.”

Among those braving the frigid outdoor ceremony was Thomas Winter of Columbia, dressed in a Confederate gray uniform, black boots and a copper belt buckle that read “CSA,” for the Confederate States of America.

“We’re celebrating my wife’s ancestry” Winter said

Linda Winter’s great-grandfather served with the Confederate Army, he said, fighting against his own great-grandfather, who fought for the Union.

“We had family fighting family,” Linda Winter said.

Duane Tressler said he didn’t understand the state’s reaction to the plate controversy.

“I wouldn’t like to see the Confederate flag on the state capitol,” said Tressler, secretary of the Baltimore Civil War Museum-President Street Station, which opens in Baltimore in April.

But to deny the descendants of Confederate veterans the right to display their group’s logo – the Confederate battle flag – is equally misguided, because other groups are allowed to display their logos on Maryland license plates, he said.

“To pick these poor guys out for criticism is to be 100 discriminatory,” Tressler said.

Members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans earlier this month said they were considering suing the state after the MVA decided to recall the 78 plates it had issued to members of the group.

“This is going to end up in legal action, and the state of Maryland is going to end up with egg on its face,” Cohen said. “It’s a shame we can’t have free speech in the Free State.”