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Tennessee County Gets Permission to Remove Confederate Flag

FRANKLIN, Tenn. — Two years after voting to remove the Confederate flag from its seal, a Tennessee county finally has the go-ahead to do so.

In 2020, the Williamson County Commission decided to ask permission for the Tennessee Historical Commission in order to take the flag out of the lower-left quadrant on its 1960s-era seal. After months of debate and appointment of a taskforce that unanimously recommended its removal, the decision was made.

Because the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act restricts the alteration or removal of historic memorials, the county needed to submit the matter to the Historical Commission. The Tennessean reported that Friday’s tactics changed and the county asked for the Historical Commission to clarify whether the law doesn’t apply to its seal.

“Williamson County now brings this petition for a declaratory order asking the Tennessee Historical Commission to hold that … the seal is not a ‘memorial’ as defined in the act,” County Attorney Jeff Moseley wrote in the petition. Even if it was a memorial, the petition continued, “it was not erected for, named, or dedicated on public property in honor of any historic conflict, historic entity, historic event, historic figure or historic organization.”

The Historical Commission unanimously accepted the county’s argument.

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