Directed by Emily Harrold
In Orangeburg, SC, a battle erupts between the Sons of Confederate Veterans and an ice cream shop owner forced to fly the Confederate flag in his parking lot.
The Confederate flag has flown in the corner of an Orangeburg, South Carolina parking lot since 2000, when former ice cream shop owner Maurice Bessinger raised the flag in protest over it coming down from the SC State House dome. Bessinger, a self-avowed segregationist, deeded the plot of land where the flagpole stood to the local Sons of Confederate Vets chapter to ensure the flag continued to fly in Orangeburg long after his death.
In the wake of the 2015 Charleston Massacre, new creamery owner Tommy Daras, who once considered the flag an acceptable sign of a rebel, has a change of heart and commits to doing anything possible to get it down. But "Keeper of the Flag" Buzz Braxton and the Sons of Confederate Vets refuse. With Confederate symbols coming down around the country, can Tommy get the flag down in Orangeburg?
This intimate, verite-driven short documentary film explores the broader role of Confederate symbolism in the 21st century and the lingering racial oppression which these symbols help maintain.
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