Alabama councilman removes Confederate flags from graves
William White | Opelika-Auburn News
Auburn Councilman Arthur L. Dowdell poses with Confederate flags that he removed from graves at Pine Hill Cemetery in Auburn.
Media General News Service
Published: April 24, 2009
Mary Norman was shocked Thursday afternoon when Auburn Councilman Arthur L. Dowdell pulled up a Confederate flag placed on her great-grandfather’s grave and snapped it in half, she said.
Dowdell, who denies snapping the flag, said Thursday he was picking up his daughter from Auburn Junior High School near the cemetery when several people told him they “had a problem” with the flags.
He drove to the cemetery and started pulling up flags, he said.
“It’s offensive to me,” he said. “To me, it represents the Ku Klux Klan and racism.”
The United Daughters of the Confederacy placed the flags earlier this week, as they have done for 50 years, in preparation for a celebration Sunday of Confederate Memorial Day, Norman said.
Confederate Memorial Day will be celebrated as a state holiday in Alabama Monday.
“I really didn’t know exactly how to respond to him,” she said. “I happen to be a member of the Daughters of the Confederacy. I was very surprised, especially (as he is) a city councilman. I was amazed.”
Norman was not personally involved in placing the flags.
“I’m a historian,” she said. “We’re not about hate, we’re not about anything like that. We just want to honor our state’s rights, and I’ve got Confederate ancestors, and I feel we should have the ability to do that.”
Norman and a friend were taking inventory of graves at Pine Hill Cemetery in Auburn when Dowdell drove up and asked who put up the flags, she said.
“One of the flags had been placed on my great-grandfather’s grave, who was a Confederate soldier,” Norman said. “He just got very upset, and he went over to my great-grandfather’s grave, picked up the flag and broke it in two.”
She said Dowdell did not know the plot she stood on was her family’s. The flags were placed on soldiers’ graves as a mark of respect, she said.
He pulled up Confederate flags from other soldiers’ graves, too, she said.
Dowdell said in his years as councilman, he had never seen so many Confederate flags in one place.
“I’m going on the record that this will never happen again,” Dowdell said. “This will never happen again as long as I’m on the city council.”
Dowdell denied intentionally snapping the flag.
“It might have snapped itself,” he said. “If it did, so what? If I had my way, I would have broke them all up and stomped on them and burned them. That flag represents another country, another nation.”
Auburn Mayor Bill Ham said he was unaware of any incidents at the cemetery but said he talked with Dowdell Thursday afternoon. Ham said his understanding was that all city cemeteries have covenants governing how and what types of decorations can be placed on graves, except for Pine Hill because it is so old. Ham said he believed Dowdell asked an assistant city manager to look into making policies equal for cemeteries across the city.
“The bottom line is those grave plots are deeded property,” Ham said. “We sell those. So they are sold to the family of the individuals, and I think (plot owners) have a right to do exactly what they did, according to the city attorney.”
Ham said in his conversation with Dowdell, the councilman suggested the flags be placed on the graves for a shorter period of time, perhaps for 24 hours before the event.
For now, the remaining flags will stay on the graves because of the lack of covenant governing Pine Hill, Ham said. But that could change in coming years.
“I certainly think we need to be consistent in all the cemeteries with whatever the policy is, not only with this, but with everything,” Ham said. “The council has got to make that decision.”
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Reader Reactions
Hey Dirtyworld, you should be more astonished that this racist turd did what he did, and not about the HONEST comments of what people have to say about it. This is where this country is headed and if we don’t stand up for OUR rights, then there will be no end to this kind of crap that Dowdell is pulling here. And let me add, that it has NOTHING to do with history for him or even racism, it’s about GRANDSTANDING… He wants to be the one in the spotlight, he wants to be something he never will be, a big man. That’s what he’s done here. A cowardly act by a small minded and small person. A hypocrite.
And one last thing, dirtyworld, if these comments weren’t within the terms and conditions, they’d be removed, but as it is, not allowing them would be censorship….and it would allow for only one side of this story, the side of a racist, hypocrite. But thank you for your comments just the same. You have as much of a right to say what you feel as the rest of us.
I have to agree with itsafarcry. They do everything that she says. And the vibrating of my car when these aprraent deaf people are like four cars behind me is rediculous. If we have to give up the right to be here given to us by our confederate soliders then all of you that blast that so called music has to stop playing it like that, put your a** back in your pants and stop buying a car and then messing it up. Do you see where this is going??? I can go on and on…. This man needs to be and adult and take responsibility for his actions. Oh! by the way a piece of wood can not snap itself into…. It is people like him that has made so many of the young men of the Aferican-American race so bad. Him along with Jessie Jackson and AL Sharpton. They have to open their mouth about everythig. Another thing if we have to give up that flag then that means that you all need to find some where else to live. It is because the soliders of that flag that you are able to live here and mooch off of the tax payers. This can go many ways. The best way is SHUT UP STOP WHINNING AND GET A LIFE!!!!!!!!
This councilman should consider that without the sacrifice made by soldiers in the war between the states, he and others of his race might still be slaves. Rather than be offended when he sees a confederate flag, he should see it as a symbol of his freedom. Respect our race and we’ll try to respect yours. Hatred has no place in our society for it only breeds more hatred.
I think it’s great that this councilman did what he did. As a matter of fact, I’m praying that more blacks in positions of authority will take a cue from Mr. Dowdle and continue in his steps.
Soon, by doing things of that nature, it will awaken the loud-mouthed whites out there that will say a lot and do little. Soon, by doing things like this finally the whites will say “ENOUGH”!!! Soon, these human waste of good oxygen that think they are entitled to any and everything under the sun WILL be going home.
One way or another. So keep it up.
I can’t believe NBC 13 would allow so many racist statements.
Posted by ( bkeenum ) on April 24, 2009 at 5:23 pm
I personally believe charges should be brought against this “public official” for desecration of a grave and theft of property…..if anyone should know the law, a public official should.
I am offended every time I hear about black history month, but God forbid you say something against the “great month of history” without being accused of being racist. If this moron would have listened in school he would know what the flag stands for, and in most cases, it is not meant to offend anyone, and if it does offend you>>>>>GET OVER IT!!
You people have a warped sence of logic, and I am personally tired of tip-toeing around every minority I come in contact with, trying not to offend anyone, but then to see a headline like this, is insane. I want to pull every obama sticker off the cars that I see in the parking lots, I want to throw a brick through every Cadillac with 26” inch rims (being driven by someone working at a fast food resturant), but I don’t do it…..does anyone know why??
BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE WRONG…..JUST LIKE TAKING THE FLAGS OFF OF A SOLDIERS GRAVE, A SOLDIER THAT FAUGHT FOR YOU AND ME TO HAVE THESE RIGHTS WE HAVE TODAY.
Get back in your Cadillac or Lincoln Town car, that the tax payers of Auburn paid for, and go do the job you are being paid to do, and stop stealing flags off graves because some of your “constituates” asked you to, because it offended them.
POSTED BY BKEENUM
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bkeenum, how does threatening to throw bricks solve anything?
he should not get Monday off with pay to honor our ancestors. he has already had his month to honor his ancestors and let somebody take something off their grave we would be charged with hate crime and called racists it just does not seem right.
CFALLIN, please explain how my way of thinking, and everyone elses on this page for that matter, give these fools “justification”.?? I am not sure I quite understand how my little comment gives anyone justification to act the way they do, I believe it is people like you that try to see things from their eyes, the “bleeding hearts” out there that give into their way of thinking and actions, and allow them to change the way we live our lives, the justifies their actions. Like several other comments on here have stated: why should we have to listen to their loud obnoxious music, watch their children bounce around in the backseat of the car (going 90 mph down the hwy), and dodge the same car when it makes lane changes by itself, because the 26” rim is about to fall of the car? AND put up with people like this councilman stealing and destroying items from a grave site??? ACCORDING TO YOU—-CFALLIN—- I have done/said something to justify their actions???? please, get a life, if you cannot come up with anything more reasonable than that, please discontinue your comments. Thanks
Email the Mayor of Auburn. Let him know Dowdell should be removed from office and charges filed against him.
Here was the address off the City website.
bham@auburnalabama.org
Dear Councilman,
It is truly refreshing in these days to find a representitive whose ward is completely without need or crime as your’s apparently is. For you to have the time to leisurely drive through cemeteries in order to take items left by families/friends/affiliates of the deceased. That requires MUCH extra time. The statistics for your ward are not bad, however there are matters that could be addressed besides a personal interest in theft for a grave site…would you not think so since you are to represent your ward’s overall interest and THEIR mindset. Your position is not to further your own interest or FORCE your own thoughts and beliefs. These graves are in fact properties of the families and in some cases historically registered. Councilman Dowdell, that is far beyond your one-man God complex. The flag is a symbol of history…something that neither you nor I can change. However, it is part of our’s and our fore-fathers gave their lives for their cause. Did you happen to pick up any American flags or Mexican flags while there? How about chisel away at the Star of David or knock down and statues of the Virgin Mary? These are all flags and symbols of a way of life, belief, and history. Tolerance of one another without purposeful aggrevation will be the only way life will change. You, Mr. Dowdell are a person who benefits stirring the caldron in order to create unease. That insures your position when it comes time to cast the ballots.
Let me share some informations with you now…what you did was illegal and not above prosection. See below from the State of Alabama laws (13 Title Codes):
Section 13A-7-23.1
Desecration, defacement, etc., of memorial of dead; invasion or mutilation
of corpse.
(a) Any person who willfully or maliciously injures, defaces, removes or destroys any tomb, monument, gravestone or other memorial of the dead, or any fence or any enclosure about any tomb, monument, gravestone or memorial, or who willfully and wrongfully destroys, removes, cuts, breaks or injures any tree, shrub, plant, flower, decoration, or other real or personal property within any cemetery or graveyard shall be guilty of a Class A misdemeanor.
(b) Any person who willfully or maliciously desecrates, injures, defaces, removes, or destroys any tomb, monument, structure, or container of human remains, and invades or mutilates the human corpse or remains shall be guilty of a Class C felony and upon conviction the person shall be punished as provided by law. Any person who maliciously desecrates an American Indian place of burial or funerary objects on property not owned by the person shall be guilty of a Class C felony and upon conviction the person shall be punished as provided by law.
(c) The provisions of subsections (a) and (b) of this section shall not
apply to any person holding a permit issued by the Alabama Historical
Commission pursuant to subsection (d) of this section.
(d) The Alabama Historical Commission, to provide for the lawful
preservation, investigation, restoration, or relocation of human burial
remains, human skeletal remains, or funerary objects, shall promulgate rules
and regulations for the issuance of a permit and may issue a permit to
persons or companies who seek to restore, preserve or relocate human burial
remains, human skeletal remains, funerary objects, or otherwise disturb, a
place of burial.
(Acts 1980, No. 80-706, p. 1424; Acts 1993, No. 93-770, §1; Acts 1993, 1st
Ex. Sess., No. 93-905, p. 201, §1.)
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