Virginia Flaggers 2016 Confederate Year In Review

The Virginia Flaggers finished our final week of 2016 with a strong showing on the Boulevard in front of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.  At the close of the year, we marked 72 consecutive months of weekly protests against the forced removal of Confederate flags form the portico of the Confederate Memorial Chapel by VMFA officials. Thursday, December 29, we had a half dozen flaggers on duty, including a special guest Flagger all the way from GEORGIA. He filed this report: At least one great conversation was held with 3 young girls and a gentleman. Education is our goal. Weather was bad in the morning, stopped for a few hours, started back raining early in the afternoon. But God smiled on us and the clouds broke and it was a great day afterwards. Temps dropped quick with the setting sun. But pride in our Confederate Ancestors kept our hearts and spirits warm.  Proud to be amongst my Virginia Flaggers family!

Saturday, January 31st was a brisk, windy day, beautiful, but chilly when over a dozen flaggers gathered on the Boulevard to ring in the new year, Flagger style!.  Flaggers reported mostly positive conversations, with one flagger sharing this report of one of their encounters: "Two of us were standing at one end of the sidewalk, and a man approached us from across the lawn.  Honestly, we were a bit apprehensive at first, as he walked directly up to us and asked "what are you people doing out here?"  When we explained about the flags being removed from the Confederate Chapel, and our efforts to have them returned, he told us that he thought what we were doing was fantastic and said he wanted to make a contribution to our Cause.  We handed him one of our flyers and showed him the contact information on the back and he thanked us and said that he wanted to give us something right away and handed us $11.  He thanked us repeatedly for what we were doing to stand up for the Confederate Veterans and we chatted for some time.  It was the highlight of our day! "

2016 was a challenging, but PHENOMENAL year for the Va Flaggers and we can’t thank all of you enough for your continued encouragement, prayers and support. A few highlights: We added 6  new battle flags to the landscape in Virginia, including our largest ever in Danville, Virginia. Working together with numerous heritage organizations and individuals, we held off monument removal, street and school name change efforts in several municipalities in the Commonwealth, and thanks to the efforts of the Campbell Guard SCV Camp, actually ended the year PLUS ONE on the Confederate monument count in Virginia!  Our Flaggers logged thousands of hours flagging the VMFA, and traveled across Virginia to fight battles where needed.  Susan was in high demand as a speaker and her schedule kept her on the road much of the year, as she shared her vision and motivational presentation with folks across the country.  We launched the Mobile Flagger Response Unit, tended graves and sponsored new headstones for Confederate Veterans, continued our RVA Monument Guard patrols, and attended numerous memorial services and events. We are proud to  have worked side  by side with many heritage groups, including the SCV, UDC, SCV/MC, ANV/MC, OCR, and  dozens of others in joint efforts in heritage preservation in Richmond, the Commonwealth and across the Confederation. We were thrilled to assist others with memorial battle flag projects in several states, including one raised by the Lane-Armistead SCV Camp near Saluda, Va. (raising the number of flags raised in Virginia in 2016 to 7)  :) Instead of writing a lengthy and detailed report this year, we decided to share this video that a friend of ours put together. View Video Here It's a YEAR IN REVIEW in photos, and we hope you enjoy it is as much as we did. HAPPY NEW YEAR! GOD BLESS YOU ALL IN 2017…and GOD SAVE THE SOUTH!