{"id":53420,"date":"2020-06-10T19:55:10","date_gmt":"2020-06-11T01:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bayfield-petition-moves-to-ban-confederate-flag-from-parades\/"},"modified":"2020-06-11T01:55:10","modified_gmt":"2020-06-11T01:55:10","slug":"bayfield-petition-moves-to-ban-confederate-flag-from-parades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bayfield-petition-moves-to-ban-confederate-flag-from-parades\/","title":{"rendered":"Bayfield petition moves to ban Confederate flag from parades"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Two
Two Bayfield residents have started a petition against the Confederate flag float that occasionally appears in Bayfield\u2019s Fourth of July parade. So far, about 3,400 people have signed the petition.<\/span>Courtesy of Facebook<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A petition against the Confederate flag float that occasionally appears in Bayfield\u2019s Fourth of July parade has gathered about 3,400 signatures of support \u2026 and counting.<\/p>\n

Two Bayfield residents, Zach Stone and Taylor Arnold, started the Change.org petition to ban messages that incite \u201cviolent ideals, bigotry, racism or hatred\u201d in the town\u2019s parade, which was canceled this year because of the coronavirus pandemic. The petition specifically spoke against the Confederate flag-bearing float.<\/p>\n

The Rocky Mountain Confederate Conservation, the group that organized the parade float in 2019, said a ban would infringe on its free speech rights. The town mayor, Ashleigh Tarkington, is ready to discuss a change.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s two years to do this, but I am urging action now \u2026 so we can get everything in place now as opposed to waiting when there is a parade,\u201d said Stone, a Bayfield High School graduate.<\/p>\n

The petition<\/a>, written mostly by Arnold, a Bayfield School District employee, cites two main reasons for the action: The Ku Klux Klan\u2019s historical presence in Bayfield, most prominent during the 1920s, and the recent protests sweeping the nation in response to the homicide of George Floyd. Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is accused of causing the death of Floyd, a black resident, while Floyd was in police custody. Chauvin has since been charged with second-degree murder.<\/p>\n

As of Wednesday, the number of petition signers surpassed Bayfield\u2019s population, about 2,700 people. Stone said some signers appeared to be local; others, from out of state.<\/p>\n

The Rocky Mountain Confederate Conservation said the petitioners\u2019 proposed ban was an infringement of its right to free expression and \u201can attempt to pervert the facts of our nation\u2019s history,\u201d wrote Paula Dugger, who rode on the float in 2019 and moderates the group\u2019s Facebook page, in an email to The Durango Herald<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Dugger said the group focuses on the preservation of Southern history, stands against racism and strives \u201cto uphold the good name of the Confederacy.\u201d Dugger is a resident of Woodland Park, which is near Colorado Springs and about 270 miles from Bayfield, according to state voter registration information.<\/p>\n

While some associate the flag with Southern heritage, others associate it with racism, slavery, segregation and white supremacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a fan of it. I don\u2019t like it in our parade,\u201d Tarkington said. \u201cI appreciate the petition going around. I appreciate that people are getting involved right now. It\u2019s the perfect climate to have this discussion again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tarkington said other members of the town board \u201cabsolutely\u201d want to restart the discussion. (In 2019, the board met with legal counsel<\/a> to discuss First Amendment rights and responsibilities after the float appeared in the July parade.)<\/p>\n

The public parade is organized by the town of Bayfield, and the town has to comply with First Amendment law when it comes to messaging on floats, Tarkington said.<\/p>\n

The petitioners advocated for privatizing the parade, which would give organizers more control over the type of flags, symbols, graphics and other statements in the parade.<\/p>\n

NASCAR announced Wednesday it is banning the Confederate flag at its races and all of its venues, saying the presence of the flag \u201cruns contrary to our commitment to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all fans, our competitors and our industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stone said he saw a \u201csurprising\u201d amount of support from Bayfield residents when he conducted a solo protest in Bayfield last week carrying a Black Lives Matter sign. When he was in high school, he remembered students wearing white laces in Doc Marten boots, a symbol of white supremacy, and making racially insensitive comments. During his solo protest, people offered him water and waved.<\/p>\n

The movement in Bayfield also received \u201c100%\u201d support from the Durango Rapid Response Community Defense Network, which organizes against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to one of its representatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone should be speaking out right now in their own way, you just want to be very careful not to overstep your bounds,\u201d said Stone, who identifies as white and emphasized prioritizing the voices of people of color. \u201cThe white community\u2019s role should be listening and asking how they can help, and then helping in any way that they can.\u201d<\/p>\n

smullane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

gathers about 3,400 signatures<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[731,28,29,51,1850],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-53420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-bayfield","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-police","tag-racism"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53420"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=53420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}