Georgian loses battle to strip Confederate symbol from state flag

The Associated Press

08.10.98

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ATLANTA -- A Fulton County court has dismissed a lawsuit that claims the Georgia state flag violates the constitutional rights of equal protection and free speech of black residents.

Fulton County State Judge Melvin Westmoreland dismissed the case Friday ending a four-year battle by James Andrew Coleman to have the Confederate symbol removed from the flag.

Coleman says he won't appeal the ruling, claiming, "the courts in Georgia are inherently racist."

Coleman says he plans to take his one-man battle to Washington, D.C., where he plans to file a lawsuit against the U.S. government claiming that the states of Georgia and Mississippi are in violation of the Articles of Surrender by displaying the confederate symbol on their state flags.

He says the Articles of Surrender were signed in 1865 at the end of the Civil War and stated that the Confederate cause would never be resurrected.

"I don't like living under the Confederate symbol," Coleman said. "The state Capitol is supposed to represent all the citizens of the state. They are saying this is the Confederacy and everyone else is outside of it."

The current Georgia state flag was adopted in 1956. Since then, several highly publicized efforts to remove the emblem have failed, including one by Gov. Zell Miller in 1993.