We didn't hang that flag, say fraternity/Greenville, NC

[Jill1228]

Yes I went to ECU and this makes me wanna holler....

http://www.reflector.com/local/conte...4_06_flag.html

We didn't hang that flag, say fraternity

By Jennifer White
The Daily Reflector

Friday, August 04, 2006

Members of Pi Kappa Phi fraternity said they were not responsible for displaying a Confederate flag Saturday during a march on East Fifth Street.

Several Greenville community groups marched from Greensprings Park to Greenville City Hall to support renaming East Fifth Street to honor Martin Luther King Jr.

As they walked by, five white men stood in the doorway of a house at 703 E. Fifth St., and one yelled, "Fifth Street rules!" A Confederate flag was displayed on the upstairs balcony.

The Rev. Ozie Lee Hall Jr. sent letters on Wednesday night to Greenville City Manager Wayne Bowers, East Carolina University Chancellor Steve Ballard and the CEO of Pi Kappa Phi fraternity asking them to investigate the incident.

The men involved had not been identified as members of Pi Kappa Phi, but pictures taken of the house during the march show a vehicle with a Pi Kappa Phi sticker in the front yard. One of the men in the photograph also was wearing a Pi Kappa Phi T-shirt.

Scott Wagoner, 24, Pi Kappa Phi vice president and an ECU senior, said that no members of Pi Kappa Phi were involved in the incident.

"The Beta Phi chapter of Pi Kappa Phi is outraged by the association implicated with the trouble-makers during Saturday's march," he said.

ECU senior Dan Apelian, 21, a Pi Kappa Phi member, lives in one of four two-bedroom apartments at the house where the incident took place. He said he was not involved in displaying the flag or yelling at marchers.

"Pi Kappa Phi has a couple black fraternity members, so it's bothering me when they're calling me up and saying, 'Did you hang a Confederate flag?'" he said. "What it stands for to me is racism. They're (the black fraternity members) my best friends. I would never do that."

Apelian said he was at home Saturday when neighbors knocked at his door to tell him about the march. They said they were going to hang a Confederate flag from the house's upstairs balcony, he recalled.

Apelian declined to get involved, he said. He explained Thursday that he's lived in the apartment for two months and does not know his neighbors well. He added they are not affiliated with the fraternity.

"I don't want my windows getting broken and my house getting trashed, so I just went inside," Apelian said. "I wanted nothing to do with it."

Hall said he is considering filing a formal complaint about the incident with the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division or the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

"The Confederate battle flag, coupled with the derision and epithets, was alarming to many of the marchers," Hall said in a letter. "It is well-known that the flag is used as a symbol by some white supremacist hate groups."