The Daily Brew crew weighs in on the Confederate flag flap

  • March 10, 2015
  • /   Randy Hammer
  • /   training-development
Escambia County commissioners Lumon May and Steven Barry said some of the wisest words I’ve ever heard at a commission meeting. You can watch a video of their remarks here and listen to BlabTV’s Daily Brew hosts Carly Borden and Willie Spears weigh in on the issue as well as Pensacola Today reporter Mollye Barrows. I attended my first commission meeting as a reporter for the Pensacola News Journal in 1974, a time when race riots and demonstrations raged at Escambia High School over the use of the Confederate flag and a rebel mascot at football games and other school activities. And here we are, 40 years later, still fighting over the Confederate flag. This clip from this morning’s Daily Brew episode is worth your attention. At last week’s heated commission meeting, where a deputy had to escort a person from the chamber, the county voted for a resolution to fly the National Flag of the Confederacy as well as the other four historical flags that the city of Pensacola uses in front of its buildings. The county has been voting on resolutions regarding the Confederate flag for the past 15 years. “A 15-year debate over a flag has divided us when we could have focused attention on high poverty, low educational attainment, all the ills that plague us, ” May said. And indeed, we have spent countless hours debating the Confederate flag rather than protesting that Escambia County has a high school graduation rate well below state and national averages. "We should seek to find things that unite us not divide us," said May. And while the flag issue will never unite us, we should be able to come together with as much passion to improve the quality of life and education of our children in this county. Commissioner Steven Barry also weighed in on the flag issue after May. “We have very serious issues as a community, very serious issues as a community, and it’s difficult to feel this is one of those paramount ones,” said Barry. Well said.
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