Obama sign replaced with rebel flag
Chesterfield probes theft of political sign from minister's yard

Tuesday, Oct 21, 2008 - 12:09 AM

Leroy C. McLaughlin has a new Obama sign in his yard. Someone took his old one and put up a Confederate flag. Photo By: CLEMENT BRITT/TIMES-DISPATCH
Article Tools
Email a FriendEmail a Friend
Reader ReactionReader Reaction
RSSRSS
digg itdigg it
Yahoo! Buzz

Printer FriendlyPrinter Friendly
Mobile AlertsMobile Alerts
Sphere IT
deliciousSave This Page
By OLYMPIA MEOLA
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

Leroy C. McLaughlin finished his workday on Friday and was cooking dinner when a family member phoned.

The 4-foot-by-8-foot Barack Obama campaign sign that McLaughlin had posted in the front yard of his Chesterfield County home was gone.

A Confederate flag hung in its place.

Surveying the scene that night, McLaughlin, 78, a Baptist minister and an Army veteran who lived to see the first black person nominated to a major-party ticket, had a message for whoever left the flag, viewed by many as a symbol of racial oppression: "I love you, and God does, too."

That same night, someone drove by honking and shouting, according to McLaughlin's family.

Yesterday morning, in the 15 minutes that a reporter and photographer were inspecting a new sign with McLaughlin, a small car sped back and forth past his house three times. Occupants rapidly beeped the horn and appeared to shout "No change," apparently a reference to McLaughlin's new sign. Like the one it replaced, it says: "Vote for Change, November 4th."

McLaughlin seemed unshaken.

"I've been praying for them, because we're all going to be charged with what we do," he said. "It's sad that we've grown and we want to keep fighting with something and can't be peaceful and thankful."

Sometime Friday between 7:30 and 9 p.m., someone ripped the sign from its wooden posts just a few feet off Bailey Bridge Road near Manchester High School.

A family member returning from Manchester's homecoming football game saw the Confederate flag and alerted McLaughlin. He was fixing dinner near a tapestry montage that features the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., between the Statue of Liberty and a waving American flag.

McLaughlin went outside to find an outraged neighbor on his front lawn tugging the flag down. He told him to leave it, and they called police.

Chesterfield police spokeswoman Ann Reid confirmed that police are investigating the sign's disappearance as a larceny. She said the sign was taken Friday night and replaced with a 3-foot-by-5-foot Confederate flag. Chesterfield police are holding the flag as evidence.

Kevin Griffis, a spokesman for Democrat Obama's campaign in Virginia, said there have been other incidents in Virginia and across the country "that have had racial overtones."

"I think on both sides we see overzealous supporters," he said. "We urge both our supporters as well as those of Senator [John] McCain to disagree in a respectful way."

Gail Gitcho, a spokeswoman for Republican McCain's Virginia campaign, said: "We have had reports of vandalism and theft of both McCain and Obama campaign signs on personal property throughout Virginia. It is sad and disappointing that this has happened across the state, and the McCain campaign strongly condemns these actions."

McLaughlin's 4 acres along Bailey Bridge Road are a wooded holdout among sprouting subdivisions. Since 1964, he has lived in the house he partially built by hand, and he still grows vegetables in rows alongside his home. He has trimmed hair in the same Richmond barbershop for 50 years and served as pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in Cumberland County for two decades.

He said yesterday on a break from making pear preserves that he isn't pushing for a particularly severe punishment for the perpetrator. He didn't raise his voice when discussing it; now that he has replaced the yard sign, he'll be watchful.

He says he wants whoever took the sign to get a talking-to about trespassing and taking property that doesn't belong to them -- and about the significance of the symbol they left behind.

"I feel like this is somebody with a lot of hatred in their heart," he said. "It's our job to help the guy try to do better in life."
Contact Olympia Meola at (804) 649-6812 or omeola@timesdispatch.com.

Staff writer Michael Martz contributed to this report.

Reader Reaction:
Give your opinion on this story
Click this link to post your comment

Posted October 21, 2008 @ 07:00 PM by Anonymous
Kids,Kids,Kids do the stupidest things. Remember the things you did as a teenager?The trespassing, taking of the sign and replacing with another is bad. I can honestly say I'm not racist in anyway but there are people I dislike not because of race. Why does the race word come up anytime people disagree. It starts at HOME both white & black. Mr.McLaughlin you are a class act. Where are the articles about real problems not ones that aren't clear or insight the people.

Posted October 21, 2008 @ 06:42 PM by AVAITIONNAVY334
LOL I know a guy here that has had his yard sign stolen over and over and sprayed it with some type of adhesive glue that your hands will stick to it and you can't remove your hands from it!! he was out walking his dog and heard someone screaming help me and caught his sign stealer redhanded

Posted October 21, 2008 @ 06:38 PM by Anonymous
Because the Confederate flag is SO Pro-America. I haven't heard a single thing about Obama supporters behaving so wildly. It's degrading, America. Stop it. Where's that Southern courtesy I hear so much about, fellow Southerners?!

Posted October 21, 2008 @ 06:24 PM by JosephineSouthern
As a Confederate Southern American, I think this was more than likely done by black activist. Black activist after the 1990's NAACP mandate have constantly everyday somewhere in the USA waged a hate campaign of vicious lies and discrimination about the descendants of the Confederate States of America and our Flag. I believe they will do anything to get a black man elected so they can finish their genocide of my people.

Posted October 21, 2008 @ 06:12 PM by Larry Lanberg
Although "cos 2:12 PM" is correct that an active Klan klavern still remains in Chesterfield, "Qhgirl"'s observation is very realistic. The person who did this might not be white, nor a McCain supporter at all. There are such things as stunts. There are such things as deceit. Its a real possibility.

Posted October 21, 2008 @ 06:09 PM by Anonymous
Well my sign was stolen and it was not a Obama sign, so I went in my trunk and put up another one. And I did not call the police!!

Posted October 21, 2008 @ 06:08 PM by Anonymous
Good article. The only error is that Obama is not African-American. True African-Americans are descendants of slaves. Obama is an Arab-African, a descendant of slave owners.

Posted October 21, 2008 @ 06:00 PM by NotSurprised
What a trusting man -- thinking that a 'talking-to' would influence the perpetrator. The last person who know how to reason with 'Confederates' was General Sherman!

Posted October 21, 2008 @ 05:46 PM by SUEBBH
I feel it is a sad thing when a person feels they have to show thier opinion by stomping on the rights/property of others. I'd bet you money that this ignorant individual is not registered to vote, and is probably not old enough to vote. I believe most of our crime in this county is caused by young people who's parents don't make them come in at dark, or do anything they don't want to. We need to watch our kids & raise them properly because they're our Future. I think both candidates stink.

Posted October 21, 2008 @ 05:43 PM by Luc
I moved to Chesterfield Ct. from Portsmouth, VA in 1990. The first month here I was stopped twice by Chesterfield County police, never issued a ticket, it was the kind of car I was driving and because I am black. Chesterfield is the most (racest) county I have ever lived in. My question, will the couinty police ever catch anyone other than those DWB? Will they fly the flag themselves?

Reaction Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

--- advertising ---

http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-10-21-0105.html

More and more of these type of incidents seem to be happening, Whites are getting a little fed-up with the dark night.