Via TexasButtenut, SWR
VERBATIM POST
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COLUMBIA -- A state agency is clamping down nine months after complaints about the NAACP boxing in a statue of George Washington at its annual King Day at the Dome rally on the Statehouse steps.
People requesting to use the Statehouse for events now have to read and acknowledge state Budget and Control Board rules that say they can't obscure visibility or access to any part of the Statehouse grounds or its monuments.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People erected a three-panel backdrop around the Washington statue on the Statehouse steps. The civil rights group said at the time it was there only as a backdrop and not intended as an affront to Washington. Its annual Statehouse rallies are part of a decade-long protest of the Confederate flag that flies there.
The state has more compelling issues to be worried about, said Dwight James, the state NAACP's executive director. He said the barrier protected the statue and has been used for several years.
The state's response, James said, is "an example of extravagant preoccupation with a non-issue at a time when the energies of the General Assembly would be better spent concerning itself with the polarized economic and racial climate of the state and why the State continues to allow the most obvious symbol of racism, the Confederate stars and bars, to occupy the most prominent position on the statehouse grounds."
Blah, blah, blah.......$NAACP$.
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