COLUMBIA, S.C. _ Members of a heritage group that were given initial approval to display the Confederate flag during a South Carolina Christmas parade said Sunday they were forbidden from doing so at the last minute.
A post on social media by the Carolina Flaggers said on Nov. 27 that their application to participate in the parade had been approved and that fees had been paid. But when they showed up to the parade on Sunday, organizers told them that they had more than two flags and could not participate in the parade.
"This was by far the most unfair, and I feel like it was disrespectful," said Braxton Spivey, the president of the group, in an interview with WCSC Live 5 News.
The parade's organizer, Michael Lisle, told The Post and Courier that the group was excluded at the last minute because their float had three flags instead of the allotted two. But the group said on its Facebook page that members had complied with the request and were still denied participation.
"We never expected them to wait until we were in the middle of a thousand people to make that decision," James Bessinger, the group's spokesman, told WCSC. "They had plenty of time to pull us out of the parade before we ended up at Main Street, so I'm a little disappointed with how they handled it."
The organization's members are now planning to involve their legal team and are considering suing the parade's organizers, the station reported.
