EUREKA SPRINGS, Ark. (AP) — An Arkansas cemetery will continue allowing individuals or groups to place Confederate flags on grave markers unless a family member of the deceased objects, despite complaints the flag is a racist symbol.
Eureka Springs’ cemetery commission approved an amendment earlier this month also requiring anyone wanting to place flags or plaques to get permission from the cemetery superintendent, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.
Glenna Booth, a member of the commission, said the amendment was her idea.
“I just tried to come up with something that would be fair to everyone,” Booth said.
Susan Tharp, chairman of the commission and acting superintendent of Eureka Springs Cemetery, said she hasn’t heard from anyone about not wanting any flags on the graves of a family member.
Kathy Attwood, who wrote the commission a letter, questioned why the flags are displayed all year long.
“For over 20 years I have been walking through our cemetery to reflect upon the beauty and peacefulness that it provides, but with each walk, I have become aware of something troubling,” Attwood wrote to the Independent. “For anyone visiting our cemetery they will find a growing collection of Confederate flags scattered throughout and placed beside various tombstones.
Attwood wrote that she had family members who fought for the Confederacy, “but I would never adorn their monuments with a flag that stood for slavery and white supremacy. It was a way of life that was wrong.
Gloria Stevens, sexton at the cemetery, said there are about 47 Confederate veterans and 97 Union veterans among the 4,600 burials there. She said the cemetery was established in 1889, so none of those veterans died during the Civil War.
Koltin Massie has been putting Confederate flags on the graves of Confederate veterans in the cemetery. Massie is camp commander of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, an organization dedicated to insuring that a true history of the 1861-1865 period is preserved, according to its website.
Massie approves of the amendment. “We can all compromise and be respectful of each other’s differences,” he said.
Massie said the flags are about history not white supremacy.
“When we put the flags up, we’re doing it solely to honor the service of the veterans,” Massie said. “If they fought for the South, they get a Confederate flag because that’s who they fought for.”
