Taking Their Country Back

This is the kind of thing we're fighting against in 2015, and things simply have not changed from 1965 in places like Georgia.

Effingham County High School’s mascot was the focus of a heated school board meeting held in Springfield Tuesday night.

A small group of people, led by the NAACP, want the mascot changed from the “Rebels”, usually pictured as a Confederate soldier holding a Confederate Flag.

"We have come to make a petition to right the wrong that should have been corrected 60 years ago,” said Leroy Lloyd, president of the Effingham NAACP.

The petition - made by the local NAACP - is for the school board to remove the use of all confederate symbols used by the school. This includes the Rebel mascot, the use of the Confederate flag, and the school's "Dixie" fight song.

Some say the history and hate associated with these symbols cannot be severed.

Pastor Franklin Blanks, Jr., First Union Baptist Church, said, "We should do better. We cannot ignore this practice any longer. We ask you to do the respect of representing all citizens. Do what is fair and honest concerning this practice."

But the overwhelming majority of people who attended Tuesday’s meeting disagreed.

Stanley Carter, resident, said, "You try to erase my heritage, you try to erase anything you think is racist. But the whole time you were up here, sir. I apologize, but everything you said was racist."

Cheers and boos rose from the crowd of hundreds throughout the meeting, some people were nearly escorted out by law enforcement for speaking out of turn.

"Everything you said is racist" says the angry white man to the black man who dares ask why the symbols of racism are being used in a public, taxpayer-funded high school. And these guys will go to the polls and vote Republican every damn time.