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The Confederate battle flag flew on the grounds of the new Capitol in Tallahasse until 2001. As Mike Vasilinda tells us, It’s removal marked a five year effort by black legislators and civil rights advocates to see it sent to a museum.

Florida was the third state to join the Confederacy.

The battle flag has been a presence in Tallahassee every since.

It was at this 1996 March on Martin Luter Kings birthday that one of the marchers noticed the Confederate Flag flying with the other flags that have flown over the state. In 1996, Kendrick Meek (D-Miami) was among Black legislators calling for it’s removal.

“I don’t believe it needs  to become a number one priority for the state to get rid of the flag now, but I feel it does need to come down” said Meek at the time.

But nothing happened…until one day in early 2001, just a month after the bitter 2000 election was settled…that the flag poles on the west side of the Capitol were gone.

The Rev. RB Holmes Jr went to Bush with a message. “We went to him and said, Governor, this flag must come down. And he brought the flag down, the confederate flag that is, without major dissension” says Holmes.

At the time, Jeb Bush said the flag no longer represented modern Florida.

“We should be proud of our past. We should not ignore it. We should learn from the lessons of history, but we are a progressive state that is moving forward” said Bush in February 2001.

Not everyone believes Jeb Bush’s motives were pure. The NAACP had been pushing for an end to the Flags display since 1999. Dale Landry is theNAACP Criminal Justice Chair. “Even Senator Meek, who at the time was a state Senator, thought it was for other reasons in that Jeb actually did it in preparation for his run again in 2002” says Landry.

The Flag ended up at the state museum, just a few blocks away…where construction will keep it from being see by anyone for at least another month.

Jeb Bush did not publicize the flags removal, nor did he issue a news release. But the Sons of Confederate Veterans said at the time they felt “betrayed.”