By Bob Strohm
bstrohm@wbcowqel.com
Freedom of speech was on full display on both sides of what has become a national issue in downtown Bucyrus Saturday afternoon.
Those who support and those who oppose displaying the Confederate Flag, more accurately the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, were on hand for a parade of vehicles through the downtown bearing the famous or infamous stars and bars.
While Ohio was a Union state, numerous people in support of the Confederate Flag lined Sandusky Avenue to watch the parade.
Denise Webster who was with her husband Keith explained that they were there because they were against the removal of the flag citing its historical significance.
“The main thing my issue is the removal of the flag. You know you can’t take history away because another half is not agreeing with the flag,” Denise Webster said.
Keith Webster argued the recent South Carolina church shooting was wrongfully being linked to the flag that has raised so much controversy.
“Take the Ohio flag if someone does something bad and they have pictures of them with the flag, are they going to take it away,” Keith Webster explained.
Despite being outnumbered, those protesting the flag and the parade made their presence felt. While the parade made its way down Sandusky Avenue a white van with a small cardboard sign with the message, “Black lives matter,” cruised the parade route as well as those sporting the stars and bars.
One lone protester with a poster paced up and down the sidewalk in front of the CVS store. Joel Vega explained why he was protesting the parade and flag.
“I lived 10 years in the old south in South Carolina and North Carolina just across the border. I understand but I don’t condone the use of that to commemorate their war dead. Their brothers’, sisters’, fathers’ dead bodies, and you want to honor their memory. I get that,” Vega said. “But here in Ohio we are such a strong Union state. We produced General Grant, General Sherman, General Brinkerhoff. We lost thousands if not hundreds of thousands of men in the war fighting for the Union. This flag has no place here in northern Ohio.”
“This flag in particular I have been told that I am not old enough to remember the history, but in the ‘50s and ‘60s and even earlier this flag was incorporated by the segregationists, by the Dixiecrats, and used in anti-Civil War rallies,” Vega continued.
Vega added that the Daughters of the Confederacy requested that the flag not be used as a political context.
None of the Bucyrus roads were shut down for the parade. As a result when the parade made its way down Route 4 it was broken up by stop lights as well as other northbound traffic on Route 4.
In the end no clashes other than a war of words between protester and those for the flag occurred.