No one wanted to cancel the 2019 Wake Forest Christmas Parade, but a torrent of comments from individuals both for and against the Sons of Confederate Veterans marching in the parade created serious concerns that there could be violence.
In Garner and Wake Forest it is the town government that pays for the Christmas parades unlike Rolesville, Raleigh, Durham and others where nongovernmental groups organize the parades. The Town of Wake Forest has been warned by its lawyers it cannot legally ban any group from the parade.
By Monday of last week, Garner had cancelled its Christmas parade because of threats of violence after a group called Move Silent Sam posted a video and photos of the SCV in past parades and asked if the town was “trying to send the message that racism is welcome in the community?” The group also posted videos of a different SCV post in past Wake Forest Christmas parades.
Two days later, on Wednesday, Dec. 4, Wake Forest announced it had cancelled its parade and released a video of Mayor Vivian Jones tearfully explaining why.
On Tuesday of this week, Captain Darren Abbacchi, head of special operations for the Wake Forest Police Department, and Bill Crabtree, the town’s communications and public affairs director, laid out the events and the concerns and fears they had about the parade which they shared with the Wake Forest Downtown board of directors, leading to the parade’s cancellation.
Abbacchi and Crabtree emphasized the reluctance of the downtown directors, town staff and town officials to cancel the parade, but they were persuaded by the real possibility of violence.
Abbacchi said the concern by everyone was the safety of the parade participants – the little dancers and gymnasts – as well as the crowd of spectators, many of them children. There could be between 10,000 and 15,000 people in the parade and along the streets, packed into a small area of downtown. What if 200 or more men and women ready to protest were thrown into the mix and began arguing and then physically confronting each other?
The Wake Forest Police Department assigns 43 officers – half of its roster – to the parade, most of them involved in traffic control. Most officers would be far away from South White Street if there should be a confrontation.
To make his point, Abbacchi referred to Charlottesville, Virginia. “We saw what happened there.” Two police officers died when their helicopter crashed and one woman was killed by a car that sped into a group of peaceful protesters. It all began with a small protest and counter-protest about a statue of General Robert E. Lee and escalated as protesters of all kinds poured into the city. Wake Forest has fewer people than Charlottesville, 45,264 against 48,117; fewer sworn police officers, 85 versus 100-plus; but both cover about 10 square miles.
The two men said the massive outpouring of comments on both sides in the days after Garner cancelled was unprecedented, with people posting on Facebook and calling the town to say that they were going to the parade to protest and bringing 20 friends or were going to “make trouble” or “take a stand.” “Both sides are a potential threat,” Crabtree said, and the situation could snowball.
“We can’t control who shows up,” Abbacchi said, saying police have to deal with everyone equally. Both men said the opinions of people on both sides, for or against the CSV, are very strong and with no middle ground. The entrenchment of opinions on both sides has grown steadily since the confrontations over Silent Sam and the Chatham County statue, and those opinions may be shared by people living in and near Wake Forest as well as those farther away.
Abbacchi noted how much Wake Forest has changed in recent years – people from all nations and parts of the U.S. moving here, congestion, skyrocketing home prices meaning more and more people are living in apartments and the concomitant fraying of some bonds of community.
And it is not in just Wake Forest. The urbanization of the countryside, subdivisions everywhere, means that within a seven-mile radius of Wake Forest there are about 165,000 people who might consider themselves a part of the Wake Forest community even if they do not live within the town boundaries as 45,264 do.
Wake Forest officials have been concerned about the CSV marching for more than a year. According to a town posting from last year, “Town officials consulted with legal counsel in 2018 concerning the Town’s options when it comes to the possible exclusion of certain groups from the parade. We were told in no uncertain terms that as a government entity partnering with Wake Forest Downtown in the facilitation of the parade that we have no legal basis for excluding any group based on the flag or symbol they display. Furthermore, there have been court cases where groups that were excluded successfully sue the entities that banned them.”
Mayor Vivian Jones has declared there will be a Christmas parade in 2020, and she and Crabtree said the planning for it will begin early in the coming year. It appears the plan is to turn over the parade to a nonprofit, a civic organization or a group formed to organize the parade that will have to hire off-duty police officers for traffic control and other parade duties.
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4 Responses
Isn’t this exactly why our oversized and misguided police force have been acquiring armored vehicles needed only in war zones? If not for this “alleged” threat then why have you accumulated such a militarized lineup of vehicles?
We teach the wrong message when we give in to intolerance and non-acceptance of each other. It is wrong to yield to the threats of others. The parade could have been managed. Many spent a lot of time preparing, some that will not have another chance. Society and our democracy lost a battle with the cancellation.
This is all really about courage. As Edmund Burke wisely said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Our town leaders are the “good men” that Burke spoke of. Out of fear, they have chosen to exclude one peaceable group (and all others) because of the threats of one less than peaceable group. Courage is not nuanced by fear. Courage is knowing what is right, understanding consequences, and then being able to act in a way that demonstrates the conviction of your principles. And for our public leaders, courage is being able to explain those actions in the face of criticism from all sides. Sadly, today, we have a deficit of those kind of leaders.
Eric Vernon and the town leaders know full well they can’t get around it by pretending to hand it over to a hand picked group who could then discriminate against CSV. If the town provides the funding (which it will) and the town police provide security (which they will) this does not subvert the discrimination issue. Even worse, if the town tries to be sneaky about funding it somehow (and people will dig for that) then they’d be guilty of a cover up attempt.
The responsible thing would have just been to hold the damn parade and be adults about it.