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● Student protesters are demanding that the Cornell Plantations' name be changed by the university "There is one key element that all botanic gardens have in common: celebrating, displaying and studying the rich diversity of the world’s plants. Yet to be truly effective, this celebration of natural diversity must also embrace human diversity.”

● UNC Greensboro Drops Name of Racist on Auditorium "The University of North Carolina at Greensboro's board voted last week to change the name of the Aycock Auditorium (right), which has honored Charles B. Aycock, who served as governor of North Carolina from 1901 to 1905. Aycock was a supporter of public education -- for white people -- but was a white supremacist who pushed to limit rights for black people. The university is starting a process to determine a new name for the auditorium. Duke University changed the name of a residence hall honoring Aycock in 2014."

● Few turn out at Yale to replace name for Calhoun hall "Last Thursday evening, just a few dozen undergraduates sat scattered across the nearly 450 empty seats in Yale’s cavernous Law School auditorium. They were gathered to discuss the potential renaming of Calhoun College and the naming of the two new residential colleges with Yale Corporation Senior Fellow Margaret Marshall LAW ’76 and Alumni Fellow Eve Rice ’73. The session, which was also attended by a handful of professors, graduate students and alumni, was planned to last 90 minutes but ended 15 minutes early. A second open session Friday morning drew a similarly small crowd, according to attendees."

● Federal judge allows New Orleans to proceed with Confederate monument removal

● Amherst College Abandons Controversial ‘Lord Jeff’ Mascot “The board of trustees at Amherst College announced on Tuesday that it had decided ‘not to employ this reference in its official communications, its messaging and its symbolism (including in the name of the Inn, the only place on the campus where the Lord Jeffery name officially appears).’ “

● Calhoun portraits removed from Yale dining hall “At about 10:50 a.m., Calhoun Master Julia Adams entered the dining hall, trailed by two men with a ladder and some bubble wrap, art technicians trained to haul priceless paintings from place to place.”

● Baltimore Sun Editorial:  Take the statues down "If a prominent Baltimore family offered today to provide the city with a statue commemorating a man whose best known achievement in life had been to author a 19th Century U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that African-Americans, whether free or slave, had no rights under the Constitution, we expect the public would broadly oppose the idea. Likewise, if a wealthy resident included a bequest in his will for the commission and donation to Baltimore of a statue depicting the two generals who did the most to perpetuate the Confederacy, we expect the city would decline to accept it. Beloved as Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee may be in some quarters, the cause for which they fought offends our present values."

● Petition drive seeks removal of Jefferson Davis monument (Brownsville, TX)  “Since its inception a month ago, an online petition to remove a historical marker honoring Confederate President Jefferson Davis from Washington Park in Brownsville has amassed almost 5,000 signatures. The petition’s author, Brownsville resident Antonio Castillo, said his wife and children are of African American ancestry and that from the family’s perspective the monument in a public park is unwelcoming to descendents of slaves.”

● Baltimore City commission recommends removal of two Confederate monuments "Two monuments that celebrate Confederate-era leaders should be removed from Baltimore's public parks, a mayoral task force recommended Thursday. The seven-member commission, appointed by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to consider what to do with Baltimore's four Confederate-era monuments, voted narrowly to remove two of them. The mayor must now make a final decision."

● Confederate Flag That Waved Outside S.C. Statehouse Could Cost Millions To Preserve "On Tuesday, the Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum Commission voted to spend up to $3.6 million to display the flag and other civil war memorabilia. The amount was a reduction from $5.3 million that the commission had originally agreed to spend on the display, with more than half a million dollars going to repair a leaky roof by the entrance, The Charlotte Observer reports.”

● Jeb Bush: Problem With Confederate Flag Is 'What It Began To Represent Later' "GOP 2016er Jeb Bush defended his decision as Florida governor to take down the Confederate battle flag from the state capitol by arguing the controversy around Confederate monuments ‘isn't the 19th century issue, it's the 20th century issue.’ ”

● No consensus on what to do with Baltimore’s Confederate monuments "The four options under consideration are: • Leave the monuments exactly as they are. • Keep them with conditions, such as new signs or other changes to help explain them or put them in context. • Relocate the monuments, but keep them as part of the city’s inventory. • Remove the sculptures and de-accession them from the city’s collection."

● Ban Lifted on Confederate Flags, Swastikas “Kutztown University, in Pennsylvania, announced Tuesday that it will lift a brief ban on any use in a dormitory room or elsewhere on campus of the Confederate flag or swastikas. The university this month announced this policy: ‘All decorations in common areas in the residence hall and apartments must take into consideration that obscene, distasteful displays which are demeaning to an individual's or group's race, ethnic, religious background and/or gender or ability will not be permitted and will be removed immediately, at the discretion of Housing and Residential Services. The Confederate flag and swastika are NOT permitted in any residence hall, suite and apartment or student room.’ (Uppercase and bold emphasis is per the policy.)

But on Tuesday, the university withdrew portions of the policy.”

● Citadel Moves to Suspend Students in White Sheets "The Citadel has announced that it will move to suspend cadets found to be involved in an incident that looked like they were posing in Klan-inspired sheets."

● Debate Over Lynch Memorial Hall: Is Name Racist? "The Black Student Union at Lebanon Valley College has made a number of demands of the college, and one is prompting considerable backlash. The students want the college to rename Lynch Memorial Hall, PennLive reported. The building is named for Clyde A. Lynch (right), an alumnus who was president of the college from 1932 to 1950, and who died in office. He is credited with helping to keep the college functioning and growing during the Depression, no easy task for a small college without a large endowment. Students who are pushing for the name change say that the name "Lynch" has racist associations because of lynching. But while many of the students' demands for change at the college are being praised, the name change is prompting a strong backlash, with many saying that the honor for the late president is appropriate and does not involve racial issues."

● University of Maryland president recommends changing name of Byrd Stadium, citing legacy of racism "The president of the University of Maryland is recommending that Byrd Stadium be renamed, saying the racist and segregationist legacy of the long-honored alumnus and former leader does not align with the university’s mission." UPDATE:  U-Md. board of regents votes to strip Byrd name from football stadium.

● U. of Kentucky shrouds a 1934 mural that depicts African American slaves "LEXINGTON, Ky. — The University of Kentucky has draped white sheets over a prominent indoor mural here that features images of African American slaves hunched in a field, black musicians playing for white dancers and a Native American wielding a tomahawk near a white settler." UPDATE: "After a group of black students expressed concern about depictions of slaves in a 1934 campus mural, the U. of Kentucky’s president ordered the artwork covered until a permanent solution could be found. But days later, he changed his mind and called for the 40-foot-long work to be uncovered and presented with a “more complete” telling of its significance."

● Harvard, Princeton abolish “master” "Over the past two weeks, Harvard and Princeton have decided to stop using the word ‘master’ in their residential college housing systems. On Tuesday, Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana sent an email to all Harvard students announcing that undergraduate residential ‘house masters,’ with the support of Harvard President Drew Faust and Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Michael D. Smith, had unanimously expressed a desire to change their title."

● Harvard Law Will Study Whether to Change Seal "Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow has announced the creation of a committee to research if the school should continue to use its current shield. The shield is the coat of arms of the family of Isaac Royall, whose bequest endowed the first professorship of law at Harvard. Royall was the son of an Antiguan slaveholder known to have treated his slaves with extreme cruelty, including burning 77 people to death. In 1936, the Harvard Corporation and Radcliff Trustees adopted seals for 27 Harvard academic units, naming the Royall crest, with its three sheaths of wheat, as the Law School shield."

● Montgomery boxes Confederate statue to protect it from vandalism "Montgomery County has erected a wooden box around a Confederate monument recently spray-painted with the words 'Black Lives Matter,' in hopes of shielding the statue from further vandalism as officials seek to move it out of downtown Rockville."

● NYT editorial backs protesters who are demanding that Princeton drop Woodrow Wilson's name from its school of public affairs "The overwhelming weight of the evidence argues for rescinding the honor that the university bestowed decades ago on an unrepentant racist."

● Jefferson is another target "At both the University of Missouri at Columbia and the College of William & Mary, critics have been placing yellow sticky notes on Jefferson statues, labeling him -- among other things -- 'rapist' and 'racist.' " 

● My grandfather lost his prestigious job after President Wilson segregated the government. "[H]is administration oversaw the segregation of the federal government, destroying the careers of thousands of talented and accomplished black civil servants — including John Abraham Davis, my paternal grandfather."

● At Princeton, Woodrow Wilson, a Heralded Alum, Is Recast as an Intolerant One "Few figures loom as large in the life of an Ivy League university as Woodrow Wilson does at Princeton.... But until posters started appearing around campus in September, one aspect of Wilson’s legacy was seldom discussed: his racist views, and the ways he acted on them as president of the United States." See also this story in Inside Higher Ed.

● Woodrow Wilson, Princeton University, and the Battles We Choose to Fight By Geoffrey Stone "As part of their recent thirty-two hour sit-in outside the office of Princeton University's president Chris Eisgruber, members of one of Princeton's student organizations, the Black Justice League, demanded that Eisgruber remove all images of Woodrow Wilson from all of Princeton's public spaces and erase Wilson's name from Princeton's internationally acclaimed Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Eisgruber, who I'm proud to say was one of my students several decades ago at the University of Chicago Law School, is mulling it over."

● What Woodrow Wilson Did For Black America By Jonathan Zimmerman "So here’s a quick quiz: Who said, 'I have to tell you: I hate Woodrow Wilson with everything in me.' Was it a Princeton student during last week’s sit-in demanding the removal of Wilson’s name from university buildings? Nope. It was conservative talk-show host Glenn Beck, who routinely rants against the former Princeton and U.S. president."

● An Open Letter to Dean Minow from Students of Harvard Law School Royall Must Fall "Over the past few weeks, students and student organizations have come together to speak out against the continued use of the Royall family seal as the crest of Harvard Law School. As you know, Isaac Royall, Jr. and his family were slavers."

● Photo of Ga. High School Student Dressed in KKK Hood and Carrying Confederate Flag Prompts Investigation "East Coweta High School in Sharpsburg, Ga., is currently investigating a photo that surfaced on social media this week, showing a student wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood and carrying a Confederate battle flag, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports."

● Georgetown Changes Building Names Tied to Slavery "Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia announced Saturday that in response to a study group's recommendations, he would rename two buildings that honor former university presidents, one of whom authorized the sale of 272 slaves from a plantation in 1838 to help pay off the university's debt, and the other one who advised on the sale."

● Artist-activists place anti-racist sculpture in front of Baltimore Lee-Jackson monument  "This evening around 7 p.m., a pickup truck carrying a large sculpture, approximately 10 feet tall, of a black woman with a pregnant belly, fist raised, parked on Art Museum Drive and a group of 10, including artist Pablo Machioli and activist Owen Silverman Andrews, placed it in front of the Lee-Jackson Memorial in Wyman Park Dell. Once the sculpture was propped up, it was unwrapped and flowers and candles were placed at its base and the group took turns writing messages on the base in marker." (The new statue was subsequently removed by police. At a meeting of the city commission convened to review the fate of Confederate monuments, sociologist James Loewen, an HNN blogger, recommended removal of all Confederate statues in the city. )

● Bowdoin Ends Confederate-Heritage Award Like Many Still Offered by U.S. Service Academies “Bowdoin’s Board of Trustees voted to cease giving an academic award named for Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, and to return to the United Daughters of the Confederacy endowment funds used to finance the decades-old prize, the Maine college announced last week.”

● Ole Miss Takes Down State Flag Because of Its Confederate Emblem  “University of Mississippi Police Department officers lowered and furled the state flag in a Lyceum Circle ceremony as the campus opened Monday morning. The flag will be preserved in the University Archives along with resolutions from students, faculty and staff calling for its removal.”

●  Ole Miss Faculty Backs Students’ Vote to Remove State Flag From Campus "In a nearly unanimous decision, the University of Mississippi Faculty Senate voted to remove the state’s flag from campus, according to WMC-TV.  The 41-1 vote late Thursday supports an earlier decision by the Student Body Senate also to take down the state flag, whose design includes the controversial Confederate battle flag." The administration has not yet taken a position.

● A Plan to Honor Martin Luther King at a Southern Civil War Symbol "A proposal that would put a bell atop Stone Mountain in Georgia, where a carving of Confederate heroes dominates, has drawn opposition from whites and blacks."

● Tennessee county's commissioners vote against raising Confederate flag Only one commissioner voted in favor of the measure. 

● Tennessee Official Explains Why He Wants to Bring Back Confederate Flag "The Confederate flag is in retreat across the country, but not in Greene County, Tenn., where one local official wants to reverse the trend. The Greene County Commission will vote Oct. 19 on a resolution that would fly the Confederate flag alongside the American flag at the local courthouse. The proposal was introduced by 67-year-old Commissioner James Randolph, who doesn’t expect the 21-member commission to pass the resolution but believes it’s important to put it to a vote. He says flying the flag would honor Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War and that he doesn’t believe it’s a racist symbol."

● Hundreds rally against Confederate sign on Mississippi flag "Civil-rights leader Myrlie Evers-Williams, Mississippi-born rapper David Banner and a prominent South Carolina lawmaker are calling on Mississippi to remove the Confederate battle emblem from its state flag. About 400 people took part in a change-the-flag rally Sunday outside the Mississippi Capitol. No alternative design was proposed, but rally leaders said the flag is racially divisive. Three men holding large flags with various Confederate emblems watched the rally from a distance across the Capitol lawn."

● Protest Over Confederate Statue at UNC "Students at the University of North Carolina interrupted University Day activities -- which mark the anniversary of the start of construction of the university's first building, in 1793 -- to protest a Confederate statue on campus."

●  Students tire of Calhoun debate at Yale "A small group of protesters assembled along Elm Street in the cold and rain Saturday afternoon, waving bright yellow picket signs and taking turns shouting into a megaphone to call for the renaming of Calhoun College. But on that stormy afternoon, only one student joined the demonstration, which was organized by the anti-racism Answer Coalition and the Yale chapter of the NAACP. Nine of 10 students interviewed the following day said they were not aware a protest had taken place. The low student turnout at the protest signals an emerging disconnect between the administrators and advocacy groups driving the Calhoun debate and the wider student community."

●  David Blight and other historians discuss Charleston and Civil War memory (Video)

●  Virginia high school students suspended for wearing Confederate flag apparel "A peaceful student demonstration at a Virginia high school ended with school administrators suspending 23 teens for wearing clothing emblazoned with the Confederate battle flag, which violates the school’s dress code, according to school officials, students and parents. The students, who attend Christiansburg High School in southwestern Virginia, said they wore the controversial Confederate symbols to protest a school policy that prohibits them, which they view as a violation of their free speech.”

●  California Lawmakers Move To Ban Confederate Names On Public Buildings "California's state Senate voted 31-2 Tuesday to ban the names of Confederate leaders from public buildings."

●  Doubts Over Confederate Symbols Put a Chief Justice’s Statue in Jeopardy "Officials in Frederick, Md., favor removing a bust of Roger Brooke Taney, author of the 1857 Dred Scott decision."

● Alexandria to take up its Confederate memorials “The symbols of the Confederacy in Alexandria extend far beyond the memorial statue to the Southern war dead that greets northbound travelers on Washington Street in Old Town. There’s the matter of the city flying the Confederate flag twice a year in the public right of way. There’s the name of U.S. 1, otherwise known as Jefferson Davis Highway. More than 33 streets and a public elementary school are named after Confederate military leaders. A plaque at a prominent Old Town corner presents a skewed version of a shooting at the start of the Civil War. In the council chambers itself, a portrait of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee silently watches the civic discourse, across the room from a portrait of George Washington.”

●  Historical Symbols in Midst of a ‘Purge Moment’ (NYT) “ ‘We are in a purge moment,’ said David Greenberg, a professor of history at Rutgers University. ‘There are so many of these things going on now that they ought to be looked at collectively, even though there are important differences from incident to incident. I think at the core of this is race.’ ”

●  Vanderbilt is stuck with Confederate-named hall unless it demolishes the building “Ten years after it lost a court case preventing the school from renaming a controversial residence hall, Vanderbilt University is doing the next best thing: letting the community vent about the name and continuing racism. What started as a discussion about the history of Confederate Memorial Hall, at a universitywide Sunday night forum, quickly devolved into a discussion about diversity, inclusion and the experience of black undergraduates at the Southern school.”

●  New Orleans, Which Still Has a White League Monument, May Finally Remove Its White League Monument "The Associated Press reports this morning that a local commission in New Orleans’s French Quarter has voted in support of removing a 124-year-old obelisk memorializing a brief coup against Louisiana’s post-Civil War Reconstruction government, carried out by a group of ex-Confederates who called themselves the White League."

●  Two scholars from UT object to the Texas school's decision to remove the statue of Jefferson Davis Al Martinich and Tom Palaima say the school president has made things worse than before.

●  Middle Tenn. State students protest campus building named for Confederate leader "Middle Tennessee State University MTSU students, alumni and faculty joined together August 27 in cross-campus march to protest the name of Forrest Hall. Forrest Hall, the university’s military science building, was named after Confederate Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest in 1958. Forrest, who participated in the Fort Pillow massacre, was also alleged to have been the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan."

●  72 history professors sign letter urging removal of Jefferson Davis statue from Kentucky Capitol “Carolyn Dupont, associate professor of history at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, said Monday that it was her idea for the state's history professors to address the issue. ‘I ran it by three of my colleagues in the state. We talked about it, tweaked the letter and sent it out to the major public and private institutions of higher learning in Kentucky,’ Dupont said. The only responses against the letter, she said, came from the history faculty of University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg and one University of Louisville history professor.”

●  Kentucky panel votes to keep Jefferson Davis statue in state Capitol " A Kentucky commission will not remove a statue of Jefferson Davis from the state Capitol, saying the likeness of the Confederate president juxtaposes nicely with an imposing statue of fellow Kentucky native Abraham Lincoln as a testimony to the state's divisive history during and after the Civil War."

●  Yale Starts 'Conversation' on Calhoun College Name "Yale University is officially starting a 'conversation' on what to do about Calhoun College, one of the university's residential college, which is named for John C. Calhoun (Yale 1804, at right), whose career was known for his defense of slavery and racist ideologies. Yale has in the past rebuffed calls to rename the college, but Yale President Peter Salovey, in his address to new students on Saturday, noted that the massacre in a Charleston church this summer has prompted renewed attention to honors for heroes of the Confederacy and racist views."

●  Crews remove Jefferson Davis, Woodrow Wilson statues from UT Main Mall "UT announced that it would remove the statues from their pedestals on the Main, or South, Mall after the Texas Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans failed to get traction Friday at the state Supreme Court with a last-ditch effort to block the plan.”

●  Confederate Flag-Vest-Wearing Ohio Police Chief Won’t Apologize "Port Clinton, Ohio, Police Chief Robert Hickman was seen in photos wearing a Confederate flag vest while on vacation in South Dakota."

●  Riviera Beach City Council votes to approve change from Old Dixie Hwy to President Barack Obama Hwy "A proposal to rename Old Dixie Highway to Barack Obama Highway ultimately passed in Riviera Beach, but not without hitting some speed bumps.”

●  Black high school student athlete says the Confederate flag he tattooed on his arm is just about school spirit Commentary by HNN blogger Jim Loewen:

#Hurley, VA,gets #USAToday story owing to its #ConfederateFlag displays.Its only black student has one tattooed on his arm.#USATODAY never noticed #Hurley is a #SundownTown; for decades it kept out #AfricanAmericans. That's why it has only one black student today!

●  Florida bill would ban confederate flag on government property “A bill filed this week at the state capitol would ban the display of the Confederate flag on all government-owned property.”

● Memphis Council Votes Final Passage of Ordinance to Remove Forrest Statue "On Monday came, as expected, the City Council’s approval, on the third and final reading, of an ordinance 'to transfer ownership of the equestrian statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest and to remove and relocate said statue from the City of Memphis’ Health Sciences Park.' "

●  Texas Town Retains Confederate Monument Despite Civil Rights Activist's 16 Years of Protest “Local civil rights leader Willie Hudspeth pickets in front of Denton's monument to Confederate soldiers Saturday, August 1, 2015. He has campaigned since 1999 either to have the statue placed in a Confederate museum, or have the alleged formerly "whites only" fountains on the statue made functional again so that ‘everyone can take a drink.’ “ 

●  Notable Mississippians join chorus to change state flag "In a letter appearing in a full-page ad in today's Clarion-Ledger, author John Grisham, actor Morgan Freeman, legendary quarterback Archie Manning, "The Help" author Kathryn Stockett and others are calling for removal of the Confederate emblem from Mississippi's state flag."

●  College of William & Mary announced that it will replace a plaque in the historic Wren Building, which lists alumni who fought for the Confederacy, with one that notes the role of alumni on both sides of the Civil War. The college also announced that it would remove the Confederate seal on the university mace.

●  UT to move statue of Jefferson Davis to history center "UT President Gregory L. Fenves — responding to a Student Government resolution, recommendations from an advisory panel and a shift in the nation’s tolerance for displays of Confederate pride — announced Thursday that the statue would be moved into a history center on campus."

●   Confederate Flag Debate Reaches New York County Fairs "Questions or complaints about the display of rebel flag imagery have popped up at at least five fairs, with varied reactions from officials unaccustomed to being part of a national controversy."

●  Confederate Statues at U. of Texas Should Be Moved or Explained, Panel Says "A task force convened by the University of Texas at Austin to consider the fate of several statues honoring Confederate leaders has made its recommendation: Either add explanatory plaques to them, or move them to a museum."

●  Mapping Hate: Pro-Confederate Battle Flag Rallies Across America "[A]s calls continue to mount around the country for the removal of the flag and other monuments to the Confederacy, a major backlash from enthusiasts of the Lost Cause has set in." 

●  What to do with the Rockies’ only Confederate memorial? "Few in Helena, Montana, even knew the monument existed -- but once they learned of it, everyone had an opinion."

●  Confederate Battle Flags Found on Grounds of Ebenezer Baptist Church Near MLK Center in Atlanta  "Georgia maintenance worker discovered four Confederate battle flags on the grounds of the Ebenezer Baptist Church—a national historic site that includes the new church, the original historic church were Martin Luther King Jr. preached and his boyhood home—near the Martin Luther King Jr. Center in Atlanta early Thursday morning, the Associated Press reports."

●  Ga. debates Confederate carving set in stone and state law "The 'Confederate Memorial Carving' in a state park outside of Atlanta is once again stirring controversy, as Georgia officials try to decide what, if anything, to do about a huge sculpture that memorializes three of the South’s Civil War heroes but causes offense to blacks and others." Change seems unlikely.

●  Confederate soldier statue in Montgomery spray-painted with ‘black lives matter’ 

●  Alaska-Fairbanks Restores Display of Mississippi Flag "In a statement on Facebook, Chancellor Brian Rogers explained both the decision to remove and restore the flag. 'I decided to remove the Mississippi flag from the display of state flags in Cornerstone Plaza. I made the decision because I thought it was inappropriate for a campus that values diversity to display a flag that many see as a symbol of racism. This is not an issue of individual freedom of speech; any individual can express their opinions on this campus. The flags in Cornerstone Plaza are displayed by the institution, not an individual,' he wrote. 'People have strong opinions on both sides of this issue. The tone and content of some of the responses I received this week have convinced me that it is in the best interest of UAF to return the Mississippi flag to the Circle of Flags, but I do so reluctantly.' "

●  Petition Urges Removal of Fla. Courthouse Mural Featuring KKK "A change.org petition is calling for the removal of a 135-square-foot mural at the Baker County Courthouse in North Florida, saying it presents 'a racially biased look at history' and should be removed from a building that is supposed to promote justice for all…. The mural [painted in 2001] by the late artist Gene Barber depicts hooded members of the Ku Klux Klan on horseback among flowers and wildlife as part of the 'Baker County historical perspective,' the petition says."

●  Summary of Events:  "Confederate monuments have been defaced; leaders have demanded that emblems of the Confederacy be erased from license plates and public parks; schools in Texas, Louisianaand Alabama are struggling to defend their “rebel” mascots." 

●  Confederate Flag Down, but Black South Carolinians See Bigger Fights “The victory — the removal of the Confederate battle flag from South Carolina’s State House grounds — was less than a week old. But as the Rev. M. Keith McDaniel Sr. sat at his desk last Tuesday morning, he had already moved on to the more substantive challenges facing African-Americans here.”

●  Boone County (Missouri) plans to move 'Confederate Rock' "Moving the 11,000-pound “Confederate Rock” from the Boone County Courthouse lawn to a recognized Civil War battlefield south of Centralia will remove a “wedge” of division in the community, Boone County Commission members said Tuesday morning."

●  Mississippi to Investigate Death of a Black Man Who Raised Confederate Flag "Anthony Hervey, 49, author of “Why I Wave the Confederate Flag, Written by a Black Man,” died Sunday, the state police said, after the Ford Explorer carrying him and Arlene Barnum, 60, of Stuart, Okla., went off the road and flipped over while returning from a pro-Confederate flag event in Birmingham, Ala."

●  Bill Banning Confederate Names Advances in California "Senate Bill 539 would prohibit the state from naming schools, public buildings, parks and roads after those who fought in the Civil War for the South."

●  Clemson board declines to remove Ben Tillman's name from building, but acknowledges his racism "Benjamin Tillman played a key role in the founding and early success of Clemson," the resolution said. "Benjamin Tillman was also known to be by his own admission an ardent racist and led a campaign of terror against African-Americans in South Carolina that included intimidation and violence of which he boasted about publicly; and for some members of our university family Benjamin Tillman’s legacy included not only contributions to Clemson University but also oppression, terror and hate."

●  Daily Beast draws attention to British consul posted to South Carolina in the antebellum South who was appalled by the elite's embrace of slavery  “My next door neighbor, a lawyer of the first distinction and a member of the Southern Aristocracy, told me himself that he flogged all his own people—men and women—when they misbehaved. I hear also that he makes them strip, and after telling them that they were to consider it as a great condescension on his part to touch them, gives them a certain number of lashes with a cow-hide. The frightful evil of the system is that it debases the whole tone of society—for the people talk calmly of horrors which would not be mentioned in civilized society. It is literally no more to kill a slave than to shoot a dog."   See also: ‘Our Man in Charleston,’ by Christopher Dickey (NYT Book Review).

●  Ku Klux Klan and New Black Panther Party Protest at South Carolina Capitol Members of the Ku Klux Klan and the New Black Panther Party appeared at dueling rallies, eight days after officials removed the Confederate battle flag from the Capitol grounds.

●  Montgomery County executive wants Rockville statue of Rebel soldier off lawn near courthouse "Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett stepped into the national debate over symbols of the Confederacy on Friday, saying that he has ordered a 102-year-old bronze statue of a Confederate soldier removed from the lawn next to Rockville’s Red Brick Courthouse."

●  Man Who Covered Home in Confederate Flags After Church Massacre Is Arrested "A North Carolina man who covered his home with Confederate flags after the South Carolina church massacre was arrested on a parole violation and put behind bars this week, according to the Daily Mail. The man, Edward Lee West, 69, of Rocky Mount, N.C., was taken to Nash County jail on Wednesday on a probation-violation charge ahead of an Aug. 5 court appearance, the report says."

●  Historians say fleur de lis has troubled history "The fleur de lis is a symbol that is deeply ingrained in Louisiana's history. Seen in architecture, the state flag and on the helmets of the Saints, it's everywhere. But while it is now seen as the mark of our great state, it was once used to mark slaves."

●  Thousands rally to support Confederate flag in Florida city "A replica of the General Lee car from 'The Dukes of Hazard' TV show led the procession. One of the participants, Rick Hart, defended flying the Confederate flag, saying 'It's a history thing. The flag is also a military flag. It's not a race symbol.' "

●  Disney World Removes Confederate Flag From Historical Display "Walt Disney World has removed a version of the Confederate flag from a stage show about American history.Epcot’s American Adventure no longer shows the banner in a flag display during its 30-minute American Adventure show, reported the Orlando Sentinel. The dramatic retelling features 35 audio-animatronics figures, including Frederick Douglas and Mark Twain, who take the audience on a journey through American history that touches on key events — including the civil war."

●   Birmingham city officials take steps to remove Confederate monument at Linn Park "A 110-year-old monument to Confederate veterans at Birmingham's Linn Park would be removed and given to a Confederate heritage group under a proposal approved today." 

●  Hillary Clinton campaign releases video about Confederate flag "The video features interviews with South Carolinians discussing the historic significance of removing the flag as well as offering their views on the next steps that need to take place, such as action on issues like wages, prison reform, education, gun control, and poverty."

●  Confederate battle flag finds a new home among artifacts "The flag is now wrapped in acid-free tissue paper, folded gently inside an acid-free box, sitting in storage at the [Confederate Relic] museum with the door locked and alarm set. The South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum was founded in 1896, making it the third-oldest museum in the state. Its exhibits trace South Carolina’s military history from the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror. The museum received almost 25,000 visitors in the past year, Roberson said, and he can’t anticipate what kinds of crowds the Statehouse’s evicted rebel flag will draw."

●  Memphis is moving the body of KKK leader Nathan Bedford Forrest to private cemetery "City leaders in Memphis plan to dig up and move the body of Confederate general and early Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest, who is currently buried in a city park. The Memphis City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to exhume the grave of Forrest and his wife and move them from Health Sciences Park to a private cemetery. The Council also voted to remove the statue of Forrest on a horse that currently looms over the park."

●  House Speaker Boehner wants review of Confederate symbols in U.S. Capitol This initiative is in response to calls to remove statues of Confederate war heroes from the Capitol.

●   Governor of South Carolina signs law pulling down the Confederate flag "South Carolina, the first state to secede from the Union and one that has quarreled often, in the ensuing years, over matters the Civil War never quite settled, dispatched with at least one of those issues on Thursday as Gov. Nikki R. Haley signed into law a bill to remove the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the State House."

●  South Carolina House Votes to Remove Confederate Flag "The Confederate battle flag that has flown at the South Carolina State House for more than 50 years will soon be gone after lawmakers capped a tension-filled session early on Thursday and voted to remove it from the grounds of the State Capitol.  The final vote in the State House of Representatives, 94 to 20, was well above the two-thirds majority that was required to move the bill toward the desk of Gov. Nikki R. Haley, a Republican who called for the flag to come down after last month’s massacre at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston."

●  US House of Representatives scraps vote to allow Confederate flag in federal cemeteries where Confederates are buried "This strange story began when Democrats in the House proposed an amendment to a spending bill earlier in the week to prevent the placement of Confederate flags at federal cemeteries.  The measure passed by voice vote.  Then some GOP members rebelled.  This led to a proposal to permit the flag on the graves of Confederate soldiers.  But the timing was embarrassing.  It came just as South Carolina was preparing to take down its Confederate flag from the capitol grounds in Charleston.  In the end Republican leaders yielded.  As they say in Washington, the optics were bad." 

●  An impassioned plea from a descendant of Jefferson Davis shifts vote against the Confederate flag "Her name is Jenny Anderson Horne.  She's a representative in the South Carolina state legislature.  And after she got through speaking the wind behind the effort to keep the Confederate flag flying over the state capitol disappeared. It helped that she is a descendant of Jefferson Davis." This was CNN's headline:  "Jenny Horne's tearful Confederate flag speech shakes SC State House."

●  My family was 'brought here in chains,' S.C. lawmaker says during Confederate flag debate "Some white Republican lawmakers who were opposed to the measure spent much of the day telling stories about their ancestors who fought for the Confederacy, calling the rebel banner not a symbol of hate but part of their heritage. The plight of South Carolina's slaves was rarely mentioned until late in the debate, when Rep. Joseph H. Neal, a black Democrat from Richland, rose to speak."

●  Excerpts from the SC debate

●  The South’s Heritage Is So Much More Than a Flag (NYT Magazine) In this week's Sunday New York Times Patterson Hood, a writer and musician, "born and raised in Florence," Alabama, says it's past time for the South to reject the Confederate flag:  

"It’s high time that a symbol so divisive be removed. The flags coming down symbolize the extent to which those who cry 'heritage, not hate' have already lost their argument. Why would we want to fly a symbol that has been used by the K.K.K. and terrorists like Dylann Roof? Why would a people steeped in the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Bible want to rally around a flag that so many associate with hatred and violence? Why fly a flag that stands for the very things we as Southerners have worked so hard to move beyond?"