A municipal employee can no longer fly a Confederate flag from his pickup truck while on town property.
Canaan Town Administrator Mike Samson said he instructed J.R. Defosse, a transfer station manager, to take down his flag. He said the flag has been associated with resisting desegregation for decades.
Defosse told the Valley News he attached the Confederate flag to his truck to protest the South Carolina legislature’s removal of it from outside its statehouse. He said South Carolina’s decision should not mean other states must do the same.
“I don’t believe in what they did,” Defosse said. “They voted the flag down from one spot. Now they all think everybody can’t have it.”
The Canaan town administrator cited a personnel policy placing restrictions on municipal employees while they’re working on town property. The town said an employee was fired several years ago for making political displays while working.
Defosse has since taken down the flag. He said to him the flag symbolizes the people who died during the Civil War.
“A lot of good men on both sides died fighting, and they shouldn’t be forgotten,” he said. “One way or another, the South people came north and the North people came south.”
South Carolina removed its Confederate flag after nine black people were shot and killed at a church in Charleston during a Bible study. The white man accused of the shooting massacre had posed for pictures with a Confederate flag.