Sons of Confederate Veterans not welcome to use Lee Chapel, W&L says
Sons of Confederate Veterans not welcome to use Lee Chapel, W&L says
Posted: Wednesday, August 19, 2015 7:14 pm
By LAURENCE HAMMACK | The Roanoke Times
A celebration of Lee-Jackson Day cannot continue in the campus chapel that honors its namesake Confederate general, Washington and Lee University has decided citing rancor that still lingers from the Civil War.
For more than a decade, Lee Chapel has been the site of a ceremony held by the Stonewall Brigade of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a group that gathers in Lexington every January for the state holiday that commemorates Gens. Robert E. Lee and Thomas Stonewall Jackson.
But in a decision announced this week, W&L denied a request by the confederate veterans group to rent the university-owned chapel for next years Lee-Jackson Day.
Hosting the program is no longer an appropriate use of Lee Chapel, W&L spokesmen Brian Eckert said, in light of the distortion, misstatements and inflammatory language the school has endured from members of the organization upset with its decision last year to remove Confederate flags from part of the chapel.