Civil War re-enactors carrying Confederate flags turn out Saturday for Lexington’s annual Lee-Jackson Day parade. Parade participants far outnumbered spectators.

As Main Street in Lexington is filled with re-enactors and Confederate flags Saturday, David Compton holds a Martin Luther King Jr. sign.

LEXINGTON — About 300 Confederate re-enactors and enthusiasts marched on a subfreezing Saturday morning down Lexington's Main Street to celebrate Virginia's Lee-Jackson holiday, and to protest a city ordinance that bars the display of Confederate flags on public light poles.

Marchers far outnumbered spectators, fewer than 100 of whom gathered to watch the parade. Most carried or wore Confederate flags, but stood beneath U.S. flags erected by the city. [See photos of the event.]

A banner strung across the street proclaimed: "Lexington celebrates diversity. Thank you, Dr. King!" in celebration of Monday's federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

"Whose diversity are they talking about?" asked Don Saunders of Greensboro, N.C., and Sons of Confederate Veterans member. "What about me?"

Saunders said he was dressed in the uniform of a Confederate private in honor of an ancestor, Lauchlin J. McLean, who enlisted in the Southern army in 1864, and was captured and imprisoned by Union forces in a battle near Wilmington.

"We're not asking them to fly it [the Confederate battle flag] every day of the week," Saunders said.

But, the 30-year member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans asked, why not on this weekend?

The holiday celebrates the January birth dates of Confederate officers Gen. Robert E. Lee and Lt. Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, both of whom have ties to Lexington and are buried in the city.

Carl Singley, a re-enactor from Mebane, N.C., and United Methodist minister called Lee "the fourth part of the trinity. We revere this man," he said.

Singley, a veteran Army chaplain who said he served in Vietnam and in the first Gulf War, called Confederate soldiers patriots fighting to defend their homes and communities from invasion.

Most were not, Singley said, fighting to preserve slavery. And today's re-enactors are "glad there's no slavery," he said.

Lee-Jackson Day has long been an official state holiday in Virginia, and state employees are given that day off. A few other Southern states celebrate similar Confederate history days.

This year's celebration in Lexington — more than usual — mixed history and modern politics as many marched to protest the city's flags and banners ordinance. It prohibits the display of flags other than the national, state and Lexington city flags from public light pole standards.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans, Virginia Division, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Roanoke on Thursday against the city claiming that the ordinance violates the organization's constitutional rights and a previous court order.

The ordinance was passed last year after complaints about Confederate flags flying from public poles that many said tarnished the city's reputation and made blacks and others feel unwelcome.

The ordinance also bars other flags previously flown from the same standards, including the flags of Washington and Lee University and Virginia Military Institute, both in Lexington, and three student fraternities.

It does not affect flags flown on private property, including a handful of businesses along Main Street that displayed the Confederate flag Saturday.

Sprinkled among the Confederate flags and period attire seen in the parade were other historical slogans recently adopted by anti-government activists — some banners read "Sic Semper Tyrannis" and "Don't tread on me!"

The divisions that brought the country to Civil War 150 years ago can still be found on the streets of Lexington.

On one side Saturday stood former Roanoker Bill White, a self-avowed white supremacist released last year after serving time in federal prison on charges of threatening, intimidating and encouraging violence against blacks, Jews and others who disagree with his views.

On the other side stood self-described Occupy Wall Street protester David Compton of Lexington, who held a large painting of King that read "One for all."

Compton said he respects the memory of Lee and Jackson, whom he called honorable men. But, he said Saturday's gathering was as "close to a [Ku Klux] Klan rally as you'll see in America this year."

"Now that we've got them all together," Compton said of the Confederate enthusiasts, "let's throw a net over them and drop them off at the county line. †Hopefully they'll just keep marching to Appomattox and surrender again."

Overhead, a small airplane flew trailing a banner that read: "Shame on Lexington honor Lee & Jackson."