City of Palm Coast defends free speech on Black Lives Matter brick

City Manager Jim Landon: 'We intend to treat everyone with respect and try to keep the peace and harmony in our community.'

By Brian McMillan
| 4:45 p.m. July 12, 2016

Bricks are available for purchase to support the Palm Coast Arts Foundation. (Courtesy photo)

Palm Coast Observer
News

One Palm Coast resident is demanding that the city remove a paver brick from Town Center because it is inscribed with “Black Lives Matter,” which he feels is a “hate organization.” The city does not intend to remove the brick, saying the person who bought it has freedom of speech, too.

Arthur Alex, of Palm Coast, wrote an email to the City Council on July 9, saying that Black Lives Matter is “radical, anti-American, anti-white, anti-Semitic, anti-police,” and that it “caused the death” of five Dallas police officers.

City Manager Jim Landon responded to Alex, saying the city has no legal grounds to remove the brick, which was sold as a fundraiser for the Palm Coast Arts Foundation.

“We intend to treat everyone with respect and try to keep the peace and harmony in our community,” Landon wrote to Alex. “We would ask that you do the same.”

Shelley T. Ragsdale’s name is on the brick, along with “Black Lives Matter” and “Together in Harmony.” According to blacklivesmatter.com, the movement is “committed to collectively, lovingly and courageously working vigorously for freedom and justice for black people and, by extension, all people.”