According to our news partners at CBS-13, Outgoing Republican lawmaker and Lincoln Town Council member, Sheldon Hanington, is in the public eye over a recent post he has shared — and since deleted — featuring a Confederate flag, and challenging others on the platform to repost the image.

The post originated from “The Brotherhood” Facebook page and the image was accompanied by a written message stating “we will not back down from our heritage,” according to a screen grab provided to the BDN.

Hanington addressed the issue in an email to that local newspaper going on to say that he is “most definitely NOT a racist” and “the meme did not insinuate that at all. It just said that those with heritage to this flag should fly it proudly.” Hanington, a U.S. Army veteran, then went on to say that in the email he served alongside “dozens of colored comrades that were from the south” who “were proud” of the Confederate flag.

The Confederate flag is widely viewed as a racist symbol due to association with the failed U.S. insurrectionist movement to preserve slavery and its modern day usage by white nationalists and other similar hate groups. Using the term “colored” to describe Black people is also widely considered as dated and offensive.

This post comes in the midst of global protests against on-going police violence in the United States. Of which have prompted a growing public sentiment towards nation-wide removal of Confederate monuments 155 years after the end of the Civil War.