HK bump!
Posted on 11/03/2003 6:01:25 AM PST by stainlessbanner
ROXBORO -- Under a warm October sun Friday, a black man carried the Confederate battle flag and led 20 white men up the middle of Main Street to the front lawn of the Person County Courthouse, singing "Glory, glory hallelujah. The South will rise again."
The old song competed with the squelch and squawk of police radios. Outnumbering the marchers, police officers, sheriff's deputies and state troopers looked on from the corner sidewalks of the courthouse.
As the short, gray-bearded man who led the march stepped up to a monument honoring Person County's fallen Civil War soldiers, he was met with cheers from the men holding several versions of flags flown by the Confederacy.
"We love you H.K.!" they shouted.
H.K. Edgerton, a political activist and former president of the Asheville chapter of the NAACP, acknowledged them and launched into a passionate rhetoric in defense of the Confederate flag and race relations in the South.
"You go over there to Person High School and tell the students I said to keep the undying devotion of the South in their hearts," he said, jamming the butt of the flagpole against the cement ground. "Tell the black people of Roxboro about this flag. [It is] history! [It is] heritage! Not hate!"
Person High officials banned the display of Confederate paraphernalia Oct. 7 after a rash of incidents, in which some students displayed the flag while using obscenities against blacks. About two dozen students were suspended in the aftermath, but school officials say things have returned to normal.
The E. Fletcher Satterfield camp, which honors Person County's place in the Civil War, invited Edgerton because of the ban.
Throughout his 30-minute speech, Edgerton harked back to life in the South before and after the Civil War.
He ticked off the contributions of blacks who fought alongside whites and spoke of what he called the "bond of love and affection" between the two races leading up to and during the war.
And he assailed the North, continually blaming "Yankees" for stirring up hate after the war.
"It's hard to tell Yankees about love between blacks and whites in the South," Edgerton said. "The North's divide-and-conquer approach did much to strengthen the rancor between black and white."
"Tell 'em H.K," several men said. "Amen!"
Some of the men who marched with Edgerton wore the gray wool uniforms of the Confederacy. As he spoke in the shadow of a statue of Edward Fletcher Satterfield, a Person County native who died in Gettysburg, the number of onlookers grew to about 40.
The march and speech was met with little dissent, except for a white man who walked out onto the sidewalk on Main Street and shouted to the authorities: "When are the Nazis coming through? Are they next?"
Edgerton said a black woman also told him to "go to hell" earlier in the parking lot as the men prepared to march.
After the speech, the men marched back down Main Street to a city parking lot, passing Royal Medley on the way. Medley, a 54-year-old black man, watched the procession of waving flags near the Henry Daniel Clothier shop.
He said the flag symbolized racism to him, but Friday's display "[didn't] bother me, man."
Born and raised in Asheville, Edgerton, 55, has spent the last decade traveling the South to defend the Confederate flag. From October 2002 into January 2003, he walked the flag from Asheville to Austin, Texas in his "Walk Across Dixie."
Edgerton described the 20-mile days and 77 cities he visited as "glorious." He's been beaten for his beliefs before and said people have called him "everything under the sun."
"I'm not here to defend the institution of slavery," he said. "[But] I've always been passionate about my Southland."
Edgerton said he came to Roxboro to support his "babies" over at Person High.
As for those using the flag as a sign of hate?
"Those babies that do that don't know history," he said, pointing to the flag. "This flag is not a white thing. That red is my blood just as much as it is theirs."
That's correct.
Below is a link that should answer more of your questions. This is a very large site, with lots of information. The War is really misunderstood by most people. After being fed the winners side throught my school years, I found things to be quite different a couple of years ago. The facts and information are out there, you just have to look for them.
HK bump!
You would have paid confederate ones. The confederacy imposed an income tax in 1863.
I don't think that is correct. Washington federalized the Pennsylvania militia to put down the Whiskey Rebellion. Federal militia units were also federalized for the War of 1812 and the Mexican War.
Thanks Non, I'm not always right. :)
"And he assailed the North, continually blaming "Yankees" for stirring up hate after the war."
At least someone's got the nerve to slap the dirty Yankees in the face...
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