Tulsa Confederate Group Weighs In On Charlottesville

Nearly a month after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville ended in violence and left one person dead,there is still debate over Confederate monuments in America.

Just this week in Dallas, the city spent nearly $500,000 to remove a statue of General Robert E Lee.

In Oklahoma, a group of Green Country confederate supporters are condemning racially charged protests like the one in Charlottesville, Virginia.

"That is very frustrating and we hate it but it happens repeatedly," said Bryce Hill with Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Hill said people try to associate their group with controversial protests, like the one in Charlottesville.

8/27/2017 Related Story: A Green Country Confederate Group Denounces Correlation With Hate Groups

He said that's far from the truth of their message.

"Our constitution and our organization denounce all of that. You can't even be a member of the Sons of Confederate Veteran  if you're a member of one of those," Hill said.

The group released a statement right after Charlottesville, saying "the 'antifa' and the 'alt-right' has nothing to do with the Confederacy, the SCV nor southern history."

"Antifa" is an extremist far-left collective which means “anti-fascist.” 

"Why would the KKK and the Aryan Nation go marching through Charlottesville? And it wasn't even about the General Lee monument there. They were looking for a fight. Antifa showed up and they gave 'em one," Hill said.

But the group say idearing down monuments and renaming schools — like Lee Elementary — is not the answer to the problem.

"If you don't like General Lee sitting there in Charlottesville, let's go over there and put up a monument of equal quality of Frederick Douglass ... a very deserving person for a monument," Hill said.

Hill said it's going to take a lot of work to move past the stigma attached to the Confederate name.

He said it would help if hate groups stop using their flag.

"The KKK, the neo-Nazis, the Aryan Nations, the people that have confiscated our flag and use it do it without our authorization and we demand they cease and desist," Hill said.