"Since all of this has come about, our community has stood behind the logo and the flag," Hurley High principal Pamela Dotson told The Huffington Post this week, echoing comments she made first to the Bristol Herald Courier. […]

[I]n Hurley, residents see the current debate as "just about politics and ignorance about the true meaning of the flag," according to Dotson, who described the school's use of the flag as an honor to area soldiers who fought and died in the Civil War and a reminder of the area's history.

"The folks that chose our mascot were not pro-slavery. They were not racist," Dotson said. "Nothing malicious or ill-minded was intended."

Buchanan County, home to Hurley, is 96.1 percent white, according to the Census Bureau. Just 2.9 percent of its 23,000 residents are African-American.

Hurley High, Dotson said, has just one black student this year, an athlete who she said wears the Rebel uniform and the Confederate flag that adorns it with pride. She hasn't heard any complaints from a black student in her three years as principal.

"Never," Dotson said. "They've been accepted with open arms as part of the family."