Prometheus 6

Why?

Southern Group Protests a Depiction of the Confederate Flag
By CHRISTINE JORDAN SEXTON

TALLAHASSEE, Fla., March 16 — A Tallahassee museum on Friday rejected a request by the local chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans to remove an exhibit the group considers disrespectful of the Confederate flag.

The group, which has 56 members locally and about 1,500 statewide, asked the Mary Brogan Museum of Art and Science to remove “The Proper Way to Hang a Confederate Flag” by John Sims. The work depicts a Confederate battle flag being lynched from a 13-foot-high wooden gallows.

The request was made by Bob Hurst, commander of the Tallahassee camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Mr. Hurst said the exhibit violated a Florida law that makes it illegal to “mutilate, deface, defile or contemptuously abuse” the Confederate flag. The law includes an exemption for decorative or patriotic purposes, but Mr. Hurst said Mr. Sims’s work was not art.