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Does Anthony Hervey’s Life Matter?
“It was hard to miss Anthony Hervey on the Oxford Square. A black man in a Confederate uniform with a Rebel flag over his shoulder, often talking to passers-by, sometimes to a crowd. He was never conventional, but he was always convicted. Some people wondered if he was a little crazy, but those who knew him saw him as a guy who simply believed something different. Hervey was earnest, and he was genuine, and he was very intelligent.” – Therese Apel, The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS)
I asked my friend Therese to email me these thoughts on Anthony Hervey because she is one of the few people who actually knew him, and sadly, one of the only reporters writing about his death:
A man who has been considered an Oxford fixture for at least the last two decades died in a car accident following a flag rally on Sunday, officials said.
Lafayette County Coroner Rocky Kennedy confirmed that a man killed in a rollover car crash near Oxford was Anthony Hervey, who has been an outspoken member of the Oxford community. in favor of the Confederate flag, for as long as most people can remember.
Mississippi Highway Patrol spokesman Johnny Poulos said the accident took place on Highway 6 near the Pontotoc County line around 11:20 a.m. The two were traveling west in a 2005 Ford Explorer when it left the road and the driver overcorrected and the vehicle flipped.
Hervey, 49, died of his injuries.
A rollover car crash and fatality in itself is a common event, but this one seems anything but common.
In these weeks after the horrific murders in Charleston, South Carolina, the Confederate flag and anything with the Confederacy has become toxic. We saw South Carolina remove it from the State House grounds. Governors have demanded it come off license plates. Memphis voted to exhume the remains of a Confederate lieutenant general, and protesters there want them out so badly, they’ve started digging themselves.
With so much anger towards the Confederate flag, it’s easy to see why the author of this book:
would become the subject of outrage and vitriol. But did people so hate Anthony Hervey, and what he stood for, that they killed him for his beliefs?
In the car with Anthony Hervey the day it rolled over and he died, was Arlene Barnum:
“I didn’t know him, really.” Arlene Barnum said. “I gave him a ride to the rally.”
She said they were both supporters of the same cause and she was letting him drive her truck as they neared his hometown of Oxford so that he may navigate the area that was familiar to him.
“We were both speakers (at the rally),” Barnum said.
Barnum, a black woman and a locally-known Confederate flag supporter, gave an account of her activities over the weekend with videos and posts of speaking at a Confederate Flag Rally called the “Monumental Dixie” rally.
On Sunday, July 19, Barnum posted to her Facebook saying she and Anthony Hervey were being chased and were ran off the road leading to a roll-over of the vehicle the pair were traveling in.
“HELP … They after us. My vehicle inside down,” Arlene Barnum said in one post, and in another post she said, “Anthony (Hervey) pinned in … gas leaking,” Her last post was a picture from the outside of an overturned vehicle.
More from The Daily Mail:
A passenger in Harvey’s car, Arlene Barnum, tells The Associated Press that Hervey swerved and crashed after another vehicle carrying four or five young black men pulled up alongside them, yelling and looking angry.
…
Barnum said they were in her SUV, which was not displaying any Confederate flags or stickers.
That last line is troublesome. You might have seen some of the videos and pictures of people removing Confederate flags from cars and lawns, as part of the #NoFlaggingChallenge. Here we have an SUV with no Confederate markings at all, seemingly followed and run off the road. This is suspicious crash, and others think so too. Again, Therese Apel:
Questions persist on death of black Confederate flag supporter: police
A passenger in the vehicle told authorities the vehicle was run off the road by a silver vehicle with five black males inside, according to a police statement released on Thursday.
Mississippi State Police have not determined the cause of the crash, and on Thursday said the investigation is ongoing. Authorities said they have determined Hervey’s Ford Explorer had not come in direct contact with another vehicle.
The report heightened suspicions that Hervey was being harassed because of his contrarian views on the Confederate battle flag, which has been the subject of heated debate across the country since last month’s massacre of nine black South Carolina churchgoers by a white gunman who had posed in photos with it.
Another witness said she saw the Explorer leave the road but could not confirm the passenger’s account of another vehicle, according to the police statement.
Hervey’s death prompted the Sons of Confederate Veterans to request a federal investigation, saying he was a friend who was likely killed for his race and beliefs.
I’d like to know what happened to Anthony Hervey. I am sure his friends and family would like to know as well.
Something about this case bothers me though. Why do so few care? Why are so few reporting this story? Before this article, I bet you had not heard of him, as I’m sure many others have not also.
Compare Anthony Hervey with Sandra Bland, two black people who died around the same time, both with questions surrounding their deaths. The Sandra Bland case has elicited tremendous amounts of social media posts, countless hours of cable news coverage, celebrities drawing attention to her case, even many people playing forensic scientist, and trying to poke holes in the medical examiner’s report.
On Twitter, look at the number of times #JusticeForSandraBland has been tweeted versus the number of times #JusticeForAnthonyHervey has been tweeted. It’s not even close.
If #BlackLivesMatter, should Anthony Hervey’s life matter too?
PS: Anthony Hervey’s Funeral Set for Sunday, August 2nd in Oxford, Mississippi
Published in General
There is a subset of prominent Democratic politicians who:
Maybe the MSM should start asking these Democratic politicians, Do you believe Anthony Hervey was a victim of an hate crime? And if not, is this case different because Anthony Hervey’s Black life stopped mattering after he defended the Confederate Battle Flag?
Simple distinction: Anthony Hervey may have been run off the road by four or five unidentified men. Sandra Bland died in police custody, three days after a traffic stop for failing to use a turn signal (while being tailgated by a state trooper).
Was Hervey chased down because of his support for the Confederate flag? Maybe. Maybe he was chased down because he cut the other car off, or was rude. Maybe he was mistaken for somebody else–whatever it is, it’s a sad story. But it’s one of thousands of sad stories that happen every day.
Sandra Bland, on the other hand, is the kind of story that (in media jargon) “has legs.” First, she dies in police custody. Then we learn that she was in jail because of a traffic stop for failing to use her turn signal. Then we learn that the trooper who arrested her went totally nuts. Then we learn that the video seemed to have been edited before being released–and that only fueled the fire. (A second edition of the video was quickly uploaded by the state police, eager to get out in front of a burgeoning scandal that had, by that time, brought out the state governor to announce that a criminal investigation of the trooper was under way.)
Then, we learn that the reason she was changing lanes was because the trooper was tailgating her.
Anthony Hervey is a sad story. Sandra Bland is news.
No his life does not matter. His politics are wrong. Especially for his skin color.
If he was a liberal against the confederate flag that died because some whites ran him off the road we would be hearing about this 24×7, the President would be making speeches and the race baiters would be a marching. But he is on the wrong side of this issue so nobody cares. They can not care because if they would investigate something embarassing may come out like the people that ran him off the road have a connection to the Democratic party or some Democrat party affiliate.
Cam G: “Before this article, I bet you had not heard of him”
I, for one, had not. Thx, Cameron.
John M, you make a good case, but I think Real J G is probably right.
Rest in peace, Anthony Hervey.
#OnlyTheRightSortOfBlackLivesMatter
All lives matter to God. Only politically correct deaths matter to the media and the government. RIP