HURLEY, Va. — Chris Spencer is the only African-American student at Hurley High School, where the front doors he walks through each morning are painted with the Confederate battle flag, the first of many he’ll see on any given school day.
The helmets of his Hurley Rebels football team sport a stylized logo of the flag, flying from a saber. Equipment in the weight room is stamped with the image too. Crossed battle flags are on the wall in the school’s main office. Rebel Man, with a rebel flag, adorns center court in the gym.
But Spencer needn’t wait until he arrives at school to see such images.