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Confederacy

Looks like that Confederate general will remain in Statuary Hall collection

in 2017 by

Representative Scott Plakon may have succeeded where a devotee of Southern Heritage failed in blocking the replacement of Confederate Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith as one of Florida’s two representatives in the National Statuary Hall collection. Seber Newsome III of Save Southern Heritage appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee last week to oppose sending Smith packing. It was a lost cause: The committee voted unanimously in favor of a resolution, SCR 1360, by Sen. Perry Thurston, to replace Smith with Mary McLeod Bethune, founder of Bethune-Cookman College. Meanwhile,…

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Influence of churches, once dominant, now waning in South

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Prayers said and the closing hymn sung, tea-drinking churchgoers fill Marble City Grill for Sunday lunch. But hard on their heels comes the afternoon crowd: craft beer-drinking, NFL-watching football fans. Such a scene would have been impossible just months ago because Sunday alcohol sales were long illegal in Sylacauga, hometown of both the actor who played TV’s Gomer Pyle and the white marble used to construct the U.S. Supreme Court building. While the central Alabama city of 12,700 has only one…

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Today on Context Florida: ‘good’ report bad news, Confederate Christmas and needle-exchange

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Today on Context Florida: When is a “good” job growth report bad news, asks Dan Tilson. When it’s about Florida, and serves both to burnish Gov. Rick Scott’s ginned-up “job creator” status, and further the creation of a new socioeconomic order in the state. The ADP Research Institute June report places Florida second nationally with almost 32,000 new private-sector jobs created. On the face of it, that seems like good news. But strip away the face value of such statistics, and…

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Today on Context Florida: Bridging divides, energy & economy and Robert Avossa

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Today on Context Florida: Shannon Nickinson says we should bridge our divides to make America stronger. Flags of the Confederacy — from the “Rebel flag” to the “Stars and Bars” — are a painful fissure, a wound we worried every day we allowed it to fly on public property. “Celebrating” heritage that was largely built on oppression and hate is nothing to be happy about. It is a truth we white folks may not like to acknowledge, but it is true…

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