Alabama won’t ban Confederate flag tag – at least for now

By Lee Roop | lroop@al.com

North Carolina stopped issuing specialty license plates bearing the Confederate flag this week, but Alabama won’t be doing the same.

North Carolina canceled the tag because the “Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has determined that license plates bearing the Confederate battle flag have the potential to offend those who view them,” according to a statement released by state authorities this week. “We have therefore concluded that display of the Confederate battle flag is inappropriate for display on specialty license plates, which remain property of the state.”

An Alabama Legislative Oversight Committee approves specialty tags in Alabama for five-year periods, and it renewed the Sons of Confederate Veterans tag featuring the Confederate flag image in February 2020.

The only way to discontinue it now is if the plate “fails to obtain a minimum of 250 sales during the 5th year of sale” or the sponsoring organization asks to discontinue it, according to the State Department of Revenue.

State records show 1,746 Sons of Confederate tags were sold in Alabama in the fiscal year ending in September 2019. For the fiscal year from Oct. 1, 2019 through Sept. 30, 2020, that had fallen slightly to 1,685 tags.

Specialty tags in Alabama cost $50 extra, and proceeds go to support the organizations and causes displayed on the tags. Net proceeds from Alabama’s Confederate veterans tag support historical projects of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, including cemetery repairs and educational programs.

North Carolina’s decision leaves eight states still issuing Sons of Confederate Veterans tags. They are Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

Legislation is pending in in the South Carolina House that would stop the tags’ issuance there, and opponents in the Tennessee legislature have tried unsuccessfully to cancel the tags there.