A woman involved in a fatal accident following a pro Confederate flag rally said she doesn't know who caused the crash despite widespread speculation on the Internet about who is to blame.

Stuart resident Arlene Barnum was a passenger in a vehicle driven by Anthony Hervey, 49, of Oxford, Mississippi, when it went off the roadway and flipped on a Mississippi highway. Hervey died and Barnum received treatment at a hospital before being released.

The Mississippi Highway Patrol said the crash happened at 11:20 a.m. Sunday on MS Highway 6.

The pair had attended the the pro Confederate flag Monumental Dixie rally in Birmingham, Alabama, prior to the crash. Hervey was driving when Barnum said a silver vehicle approached, sped up and tried to run the vehicle she was in off the road. The vehicle that approached contained four or five individuals Barnum described as African American.

One Internet blog has implied that, somehow, the incident was the result of a confrontation between Barnum, Hervey and anti-flag advocates at the rally. Other commenters on various Internet sites have tried to imply the incident was somehow related to the controversy over the flag, but Barnum said she has no idea who caused the tragedy.

"Hervey sure was trying to get away fast," she said. "I don't think he hit the brakes — not at all. The only thing that stopped the truck was the roll over."

“I didn't know who those guys were in that car as I've never seen them before,” she said.

The Mississippi Highway Patrol made no mention of a second vehicle in an initial account of the crash. Since then, the authorities have not responded to requests for comment or further details.

Barnum said Hervey said "what the (heck),” moments before the crash. "Then he was swerving to get away from them. He sped up a bit to get away from them.”

She said the sport utility vehicle the pair was riding in belongs to her. She added Hervey was behind the wheel because he was from Oxford, Mississippi — near where the crash occurred — and it was easier to let him navigate his way home to Oxford where she was going to drop him off before returning to southeast Oklahoma.

“I don’t know if I would have done any better in the driver’s seat,” she said.

“An hour before we got into Oxford, he said 'You and I could get assassinated for what’s going on,'” she said. “He said 'Don’t drive around in different states with (the Confederate flag) on the back of (the SUV).'”

Barnum and Hervey are both black, and they are both supporters of preserving the heritage represented by the Confederate flag. She said the first thing that came to mind after the accident was that the crash was somehow related to the pro Confederate flag rally the pair attended over the weekend, or their Confederate flag support in general. However, she said she did not have any Confederate flags on her vehicle.

She documented both the rally and then the crash Sunday through comments and posts on her Facebook page.

She said word of the crash spread quickly, along with much misinformation.

“There are people who keep saying Hervey was my husband and I'm from Mississippi,” she said. "I really didn't know him.”

She said she and Hervey were both speakers at the rally.

She said during the short time the pair spent traveling together, Hervey expressed his desire to stop the removal of the Confederate symbol from the Mississippi state flag and "that he was writing a book."

"On the way home he said that he got in trouble for knocking guys out because they tried to snatch his Confederate flag," Barnum said, noting Hervey was apparently referring to prior incidents in Oxford not related to the flag rally they'd attended. Hervey also said "blacks in Oxford broke in on him at his house and threw bricks in his house window because of his public Confederacy support — he did say he didn't feel safe.”

When asked if there were any witnesses to the chase or the crash she said, “I don't know.”

“All I saw was white hands grabbing and pulling me out of that rolled over truck,” she said. “And two blacks who look like they were dressed in church clothes observing.”

“I heard somebody say at the scene that they saw dust and smoke in the ditch and noticed the rolled-over truck,” Barnum said.

She spoke of how quickly it all happened and how quickly Hervey lost his life.

"A good man is dead and he should not have died," she said. "He had a future.”

She said she wants peace and tolerance for all views and heritage.

"I want this racial division to stop," Barnum said. "I'm tired of (the) black community attacking other blacks for their political party, views and stances that are not typical in the black community.”

She said she is concerned about all the controversy over the future of the flag and what it stands for.

"I'm tired of blacks calling us pro-Confederate folks, the Uncle Tom word,” she said. “I’m just so tired of feeling like we're on brink of (a) race war.

"But that's what (we're) up against — all of us," she said.

"A tribute will be given to Hervey in his honor in Tulsa at (a) Confederate flag rally" on July 25th, she said.

Contact Glenn Puit by email at gpuit@mcalesternews.com.