Southern Secession Party Born

FLAT ROCK, N.C. — A fledgling group of about 200 Southern nationalists gathered at a Civil War-era inn in the North Carolina mountains Saturday to launch a secessionist political party in the South.

The Southern Party, which unlike other separatist movements of generations past claims to oppose white-supremacy ideologies, will seek to place candidates on local ballots in as many as 16 states in the 2000 elections, including all the states of the old Confederacy.

“I welcome you here to this historic occasion to announce the formation of the Southern Party, dedicated to limited government, low taxes, maximum individual liberty, a free market and self-determination for Dixie,” Southern National Committee board member Ron Holland said.

Holland, a North Carolina investment counselor, was flanked by men wearing Civil War uniforms on a platform draped with an oversized Confederate flag.

A volley of ceremonial gunfire erupted as party officials signed a declaration officially forming the party.

The Southern Party is an outgrowth of the League of the South, a Southern nationalist group headquartered in Tuscaloosa, Ala., that formed a committee in November to explore the creation of a new political party.

Party leaders said that they will try to realize their goal of an independent Southern nation through the ballot box.

The party hopes to elect governors and legislative majorities in Southern states, which would then vote to withdraw from the United States.

No African Americans or other minorities attended the meeting.