[REUTERS] An eight-mile convoy of pickups, cycle of violences and cars wound through a central Florida town on Sunday in a show of support for the Confederate flag, as a backlash against its banishment from public landmarks across the South picks up steam.Horns blared and hundreds of the rebel flags fluttered as more than 1,500 vehicles and some 4,500 people turned out for the "Florida Southern Pride Ride" in Ocala, according to police estimates. Vehicles from states across the South and as far away as Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, participated.
"That flag has a lot of different meanings to a lot of different people," said David Stone, 38, who organized the event. "It doesn't symbolize hate unless you think it's hate - and that's your problem, not mine."
Organizers announced the event as the South embarked on an emotional debate over the flag's symbolism in the aftermath of the massacre of nine blacks by a white gunman in a Charleston church last month. The suspect in the church shootings had posed with the flag in photos posted on a website.
In South Carolina, politicians moved quickly to take the flag down from the statehouse grounds in Columbia, a longstanding demand of those who see it as a divisive
...politicians call things
divisivewhen when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never
divisive,they're
principled...
symbol of the South's pro-slavery legacy.
Alabama and scores of municipalities have take similar steps since the June 17 massacre.
But the national push to pull the controversial icon from stores and public displays is being met with determined resistance in some corners of the United States.
Supporters such as those who drove through Ocala on Sunday insist the flag is a honorable symbol of regional pride, a mark of respect for Southern soldiers who died in the American Civil War.
In Ocala, the seat of Marion County, an administrator had ordered the Confederate flag's removal from a government complex. But last week county leaders overruled the order and the banner is again flying atop the building.
"It's just about heritage. I'm upset they want to remove a piece of history," said Jessica McRee, 29, an Ocala native and employee of a law enforcement agency who participated in Sunday's ride.