Veteran's Day Parade Denies Dixie
Since last year's parade, the Confederate flag has been a hot topic in Homestead
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The Confederate flag will have to stay home this Veteran's Day -- at least in Homestead.
After a back-and-forth that has lasted almost a year, officials have decided that the Confederate flag won't be invited to this year's Veteran's Day Parade in Homestead.
Back in April, black Homestead residents offended by the display of the controversial flag called for its ban at all city-sanctioned events.
“That flag is flown to strike fear in people, and it’s no different than a swastika being displayed in front of Jews,’’ Brad Brown, vice president of the Miami-Dade NAACP, told the South Florida Times in April.
However, the Chamber of Commerce contended that it was the Military Affairs Committee, not them, that organized the parade.
“My feeling is that the NAACP is opposed to anything that is not in their best interest and they are denying the descendants of black Confederate veterans the opportunity to honor their ancestors," said Richard W. Lee, a deputy division commander in the Sons of Confederate Veterans, in April.
Fast forward a few months, when the board of directors of the Homestead/Florida City Chamber of Commerce voted to recommend that officials disband the Homestead parade all together out of concern that military personnel and veterans might be heckled or mistreated at the event because of the flag.
The Chamber ultimately decided the parade must go on, though, and that they could not ban participants from flying Old Glory.
"It's hard to march in a parade without our flag," Gregory Kalof, commander of the Miami chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, told the Miami Herald earlier this month. "It's like going to a rodeo without a horse."
Looks like that's just what Kalof will have to do, however, as earlier this week the Military Affairs Committee voted via e-mail to ban the flag.
Jeff Wander, the committee chairman, told the South Florida Times that he would not release the names of who voted against the ban, but did say that there was "very, very little opposition to banning the battle flag."
The vote came on the heels of pressure from several groups, including neighboring Florida City, which threatened to withdrawl its membership from the chamber, and the America Red Cross, which threatened to not march in the parade should the flag not be banned.
Neither group has commented since the vote to ban the flag.
