Councilman removes Confederate flags from graves
William White | Opelika-Auburn News
Auburn City Councilman Arthur L. Dowdell poses with Confederate flags that he removed from graves at Pine Hill Cemetery in Auburn.
Staff writer
Published: April 23, 2009
Updated: April 24, 2009
Mary Norman was shocked Thursday afternoon when Auburn Councilman Arthur L. Dowdell pulled up a Confederate flag placed on her great-grandfather’s grave and snapped it in half, she said.
Dowdell, who denies snapping the flag, said Thursday he was picking up his daughter from Auburn Junior High School near the cemetery when several people told him they “had a problem” with the flags.
He drove to the cemetery and started pulling up flags, he said.
“It’s offensive to me,” he said. “To me, it represents the Ku Klux Klan and racism.”
The United Daughters of the Confederacy placed the flags earlier this week, as they have done for 50 years, in preparation for a celebration Sunday of Confederate Memorial Day, Norman said.
Confederate Memorial Day will be celebrated as a state holiday in Alabama Monday.
“I really didn’t know exactly how to respond to him,” she said. “I happen to be a member of the Daughters of the Confederacy. I was very surprised, especially (as he is) a city councilman. I was amazed.”
Norman was not personally involved in placing the flags.
“I’m a historian,” she said. “We’re not about hate, we’re not about anything like that. We just want to honor our state’s rights, and I’ve got Confederate ancestors, and I feel we should have the ability to do that.”
Norman and a friend were taking inventory of graves at Pine Hill Cemetery in Auburn when Dowdell drove up and asked who put up the flags, she said.
“One of the flags had been placed on my great-grandfather’s grave, who was a Confederate soldier,” Norman said. “He just got very upset, and he went over to my great-grandfather’s grave, picked up the flag and broke it in two.”
She said Dowdell did not know the plot she stood on was her family’s. The flags were placed on soldiers’ graves as a mark of respect, she said.
He pulled up Confederate flags from other soldiers’ graves, too, she said.
Dowdell said in his years as councilman, he had never seen so many Confederate flags in one place.
“I’m going on the record that this will never happen again,” Dowdell said. “This will never happen again as long as I’m on the city council.”
Dowdell denied intentionally snapping the flag.
“It might have snapped itself,” he said. “If it did, so what? If I had my way, I would have broke them all up and stomped on them and burned them. That flag represents another country, another nation.”
Auburn Mayor Bill Ham said he was unaware of any incidents at the cemetery but said he talked with Dowdell Thursday afternoon. Ham said his understanding was that all city cemeteries have covenants governing how and what types of decorations can be placed on graves, except for Pine Hill because it is so old. Ham said he believed Dowdell asked an assistant city manager to look into making policies equal for cemeteries across the city.
“The bottom line is those grave plots are deeded property,” Ham said. “We sell those. So they are sold to the family of the individuals, and I think (plot owners) have a right to do exactly what they did, according to the city attorney.”
Ham said in his conversation with Dowdell, the councilman suggested the flags be placed on the graves for a shorter period of time, perhaps for 24 hours before the event.
For now, the remaining flags will stay on the graves because of the lack of covenant governing Pine Hill, Ham said. But that could change in coming years.
“I certainly think we need to be consistent in all the cemeteries with whatever the policy is, not only with this, but with everything,” Ham said. “The council has got to make that decision.”
Advertisement
Reader Reactions
Words fail me. This man does nothing but stir up trouble wherever he goes, but yet he sits pretty on the city council. Perhaps Mr. Dowdell should have paid better attention in history as he would know that the civil war wasn’t just about slavery and some of his ancestors fought for the South as well. Furthermore, I’m appalled that the city council is allowing to him to get away with blatantly breaking the law. I feel he should most certainly have to answer for his actions. He does nothing for his community except make himself look uneducated. We don’t protest the African American the right to black history month, so who is he to begrudge us the right to put out confederate flags for those of us whose ancestors died for what they believed in? My great great Uncle is Stonewall Jackson and I’m livid that he’s allowed to get away with blatantly breaking the law.
13A-11-12, Code of Ala. 1975, Desecration of venerated objects, provides in part: (a) A person commits the crime of desecration of venerated objects if he intentionally:...........
(2) Desecrates in a public place the United States or Alabama flag or any other object of veneration by the public or a substantial segment thereof.
Bre I feel it is my duty to correct you. First, there are Confederate gravesites in Tallapoosa county that do display the Confederate Naval flag aka “The Southern Cross”. However, I think they should correct that and fly the correct flag, the “Stars and Bars”. I also have to disagree with you about the holidays you mention. I don’t know of any company that would discriminate in such a manner.
If you want to push it as far as you have. What makes it “right” for all of America to celebrate Black History Month when there are no holidays for American Indian Month, Mexican-American Month, Immigrants Month…I could go on. GET MY POINT?!?
I am sure that Mr. Dowdell is proud of his history. I am also proud of MY History. Mr. Dowdell would not like it if I were to take away something from his family gravesite. I feel that he should be charged for stealing and destruction of property. As a councilman he should know better. He needs to step down.
13A-7-23, Criminal Code of Ala 1975, provides in part:(a)A person commits the crime of criminal mischief in the third degree if, with intent to damage property, and having no right to do so or any reasonable ground to believe that he or she has such a right, he or she inflicts damages to property in an amount not exceeding five hundred dollars ($500).
13A-7-23.1, Criminal Code of Ala, 1975, provides in part: (a) Any person….........who willfully and wrongfully destroys, removes, cuts, breaks or injures any tree, shrub, plant, flower, decoration, or other real or personal property within any cemetery or graveyard shall be guilty of a Class A misdemeanor.
So, I take it that being offended gives the “Reverend” the right to do what he feels like. That would then make the whites on Bloody Sunday right, since they were HIGHLY offended. There is NO right to act on being offended.
Have news for you, Reverend. The election of Barack Obama canceled the race card, folded it, mutilated it, and burned it up since blacks showed uniformly (99%) at they would vote based solely one the color of one’s skin and are racist to the core.
Perhaps, if the Reverend Councilman would spend more time being offended at the rate of unwed mothers and black on black crime, maybe he would be headed int he right direction.
But, we know that isn’t going to happen because the Reverend has an ax to grind and if things got better, the ax wouldn’t cut so well. I mean, how is it that the black Africans in our schools do so very well, but the African-Americans with the same opportunities don’t? They are both black and subject tot he same “racism”, but have two drastic differences. And it is because of people like the Reverend who truly are the “man” who keeps his people down.
Mr. Dowdell is loving this…He has folks stirred up…He has been looking for a way to do that for a long time…
Mary Norman, you are my hero. Thank you for taking the high road here. You are certainly entitled to press charges against the “Reverend” for removal of the flag from your great-grandfather’s grave under Ala. Code Section 13A-7-23.1(a): “Any person who ... willfully and wrongfully destroys, removes, cuts, breaks or injures any ... decoration, or other real or personal property within any cemetery or graveyard shall be guilty of a Class A misdemeanor.“ You chose the right path, however - make the public aware the Reverend’s intolerable actions. Confederate flags and markers are proudly placed on the graves of my great-great-great grandfathers who gave their lives for the Confederacy. I will end with a quote from Tennessee Senator Edward Carmack, 1903: “The Confederate soldiers were our kinfolk and our heroes. We testify to the country our enduring fidelity to their memory. We commemorate their valor and devotion. There were some things that were not surrendered at Appomattox. We did not surrender our rights and history, nor was it one of the conditions of surrender that unfriendly lips should be suffered to tell the story of that war or that unfriendly hands should write the epitaphs of the Confederate dead. We have a right to teach our children the true history of the war, teh causes that led up to it and the principles involved.“
Here’s the thing I live in tallapoosa county and the cemeteries here don’t place confererate flags any where. Most of the comments that are posted are from the white race, and fell that the two need a holiday to give their race a day. Just two years ago I learned of this holiday. A day that my boss got to celebrate off but me being black I had to work. On Kings holiday every one should be intitled to the same thing. I know in my heart that Rev. Dodwell was right if blacks had a flag to display like the confederate flag then some one would be mad.
Mayor Hamm should reconsider his position. Establishing new covenants to appease a group is the wrong way to take this. I feel that all races should get passed the racism issue and come together once and for all. Councilman Dowdell committed a crime, period. He should answer to it as would anyone else. As far as his flaunting his “proud desecration” in the news is an autracity and should have never been printed. Does he really think that doing what he has done is “the right thing to do”? WWJD - Mr. Dowdell please. Would you take down the cross because it is offensive to the atheist or other non-Christian group? Is it ok to desecrate your ancestors graves? Stop being so prejudice.
Advertisement