The NAACP has been on the warpath for all things Confederate: monuments, flags, schools named after generals and images on government property.
One leader of the civil rights group has had enough.
“It is almost like there is a rush to cleanse everything Confederate from the landscape of America,” interim executive director of the Virginia State Conference of the NAACP Jack Gravely tells The News Virginian. “I don’t think that will happen. I don’t think the NAACP should spend much time in chasing those relics of the past.”
Gravely says the Virginia chapter of the national group doesn’t have an official position on renaming roads and parks commemorating Confederate generals, but believes schools should not honor “people who seceded from the union and committed treason.”
Despite that, Gravely says he doesn’t think the group should “be concerned” with pushing the purge of Confederate items.
His position has been consistent.
Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe pushed to remove the flag from an optional state license plate.
“Although the battle flag is not flown here on Capitol Square, it has been the subject of considerable controversy, and it divides many of our people” McAuliffe said in June, according to The Daily Progress. “Even its display on state-issued license tags is, in my view, unnecessarily divisive and hurtful to too many of our people.”
Gravely didn’t think much of that kerfuffle, either, believing it’s a “distraction” from other issues.
“We have economic, educational, criminal, lack-of-jobs issues that we need to be dealing with,” Gravely said. “To me this is just a blip in the road, removing a doggone flag. I don’t want to spend any more energy on it. There’s bigger issues to focus on.”
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