Confederate banner flies over Downtown Jacksonville yet again
Save Southern Heritage flies over Jax. Image via Lauren Steif.

confederate banner
Save Southern Heritage namechecks Mayor Lenny Curry in latest flight.

Jacksonville’s complicated history with confederate monuments is back in the present tense Tuesday.

The Save Southern Heritage group flew a plane above downtown Tuesday morning with a confederate battle flag and what appears to be the message “Curry: Stop the Hate.”

That message is a reference to Mayor Lenny Curry, a Republican who has repeatedly pushed to have monuments removed, with the one in what is now James Weldon Johnson Park gone as of 2020. A second one, a tribute to confederate women, remains in Springfield Park with no clear timetable for movement.

A statement from the group, in the form of a photograph of typewritten City Council public comments from H.R. Edgerton, accused Curry of demonstrating “hate” to confederate veterans and the women who loved them.

As the plane flew overhead, meanwhile, City Hall staffers were discovering bullet holes in a window near where the mayor sits daily. Another spokesman for the group, Kirk D. Lyons, said Save Southern Heritage had nothing to do with that “potshot at the mayor” through a fourth floor window.

“We’re peace, love, and dove,” Lyons contended during a phone call Tuesday. “Nobody was shooting out of the airplane, that I can assure you.”

This group has already flown to show its disapproval once. Ahead of the Jaguars’ game against the Baltimore Ravens, a plane funded by Save Southern Heritage flew a banner above TIAA Bank Field calling for the restoration of confederate statues in Jacksonville.

Curry expressed his disapproval then in a tweet: “As I’ve said before, there is no place for hate of any kind in our City. My position on monuments remains clear, I have allocated money for removal and empowered city council to take action.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis would not condemn the incident when asked, meanwhile, preferring to blast reporters.

“I’m concerned when people in the media take some jabroni that nobody cares about and will try to elevate them and make them some type of celebrity,” said DeSantis.

The incident comes just weeks after the Florida-Georgia Game, one of the biggest events on Jacksonville’s cultural calendar, was marred with antisemitic messages displayed at the stadium and elsewhere in town.

They first surfaced on an overpass on Interstate 10 in western Duval County. A banner urged drivers to “end Jewish supremacy” and “honk if you know it was the Jews.” Another one surfaced on Arlington Expressway, extolling Kanye West for being “right about the Jews.”

After the football game downtown, similar messages were broadcast on the stadium and other downtown buildings.

On behalf of the Southern Heritage group, Lyons denied any affinity with West’s messages Tuesday.

The City Council rejected a proposal in June to slot $500,000 for monument removal, with “alternative funding” sought to cover inevitable cost overage. What’s clear is this issue remains a live one, especially in the face of the City Council’s inaction.

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This is a developing story and may be updated.

A.G. Gancarski

A.G. Gancarski has been the Northeast Florida correspondent for Florida Politics since 2014. His work also can be seen in the Washington Post, the New York Post, the Washington Times, and National Review, among other publications. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter: @AGGancarski


9 comments

  • ScienceBLVR

    December 6, 2022 at 10:04 am

    Does anyone else find it odd, that DeSantis and his supporters want to shut down the free speech rights of so many others, but not white supremacists and anti semites? Seems in DeSantis world, that part of the first amendment doesn’t apply to educators, university professors, Disney, duly elected prosecutors, companies with Woke ideologies, whatever that is etc. What a racist hypocrite our governor has become.

    • ScienceBeaver

      December 6, 2022 at 10:16 am

      Sure, whatever you say buddy.

      • John P

        December 6, 2022 at 12:04 pm

        Is he wrong “BUDDY”?

    • Peggy

      December 6, 2022 at 10:27 am

      That’s because DeSantis is obviously a racist, and so are his supporters.

    • T Rodney

      December 6, 2022 at 1:40 pm

      So you know of 1st Amendment violations where Gov DeSantis and/or his administration is stifling free speech / censoring Floridians? That’s a crime and you need to report it immediately and get legal action happening! We’ve got him now!

      • Minky

        December 6, 2022 at 6:00 pm

        He’s not violating the first amendment, but he’s applying authoritarian policy that blurs the line between free speech and hate speech. Problems he’s made include book banning, banning teachers from talking about hetero or gay marriage, gutting public education, prohibiting parents from raising kids they way they see fit, etc.

    • Ding Ding Ding

      December 7, 2022 at 11:54 am

      Ding ding ding

  • Joe Corsin

    December 6, 2022 at 11:03 am

    Racist trolls are rampant in Florida. Don’t know why anyone would want to move here seeing as so called Florida leadership does nothing about it. These racist, anti-government groups down here should be found in a ditch with their pants down around their ankles instead of propped up.

  • grinning libber

    December 6, 2022 at 4:04 pm

    The only correct confederate flag is a white one.

Comments are closed.


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