The Nation - News from Dec. 29, 1987

The NAACP kicked off a four-state campaign to banish the image of the Confederate flag from the state capitols of Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi and Alabama. The civil rights organization wants Confederate flags flying over the capitols in South Carolina and Alabama pulled down and the legislatures in Georgia and Mississippi to re-create their state flags without any hint of Confederate bars. NAACP Regional Director Earl Shinhoster said the Confederate flag is an “odius symbol of a bygone era.” Armed with 16,000 signatures from supporters, Shinhoster at a news conference in Savannah, Ga., urged Southerners in the targeted states to write their representatives and sign petitions calling for new, more inclusive symbols.