From: hk.edgerton@gmail.com
As I made my way to Jacksonville, I would be made aware of the hate filled rhetoric that the NAACP had launched the night before to members of the alumni, staff, and community about the Honorable General Nathan Bedford Forrest as they lobbied to have his name removed from the High School.
I would arrive Wednesday morning at 5 AM, December 11, 2013, change into the uniform of the Southern soldier, and because of the high volume of traffic and members of the Forrest staff already arriving; I would phone the Honorable Henry Russ, and post the Colors in the Public Easement at the front of the school at 5:45 AM.
I have posted the Colors in many places over the past decade, but nothing and nowhere I have ever done so would prepare me for the onslaught of hate filled rhetoric that would come my way from the members of the public who would pass me by on this dark morning.
By the time Mr. Russ would join me, the lights from the Police Traffic Officer were already flashing and the Vice Principal and another Black male would approach us. The Vice Principal would tell me that I would have to leave, and that he didn't care about me being in support of not changing the school name, but my Flag had to go. I told him he could forget it, and that and I was in the Public easement expressing my First Amendment Rights. He said we are going to see about that as he crossed the street and approached the Police Officer to help him with his demands to forcibly have me removed. Failing to secure help from this officer, he demanded that the Officer take his request to a higher ranking person, and came back to inform me that he was working on my removal.
I wish that I could spell the name of the young Black female who would come and hold dialogue with us alongside a Black man and the other members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans who had also now joined Mr. Russ and myself. It was a spirited debate that would last for more than three hours about not only the man who had been a true friend to the African people before, during, and after the War for Southern Independence, but also about the Southern White man who had tried so very hard to do the same. God bless them both for their decency and willingness to hold meaningful dialogue.
We would be interviewed by several members of the press. I could not help wondering how the Principal and his Vice as Black men could take a position at Forrest High and not know or want to know about the man himself who was loved by the people of his time, be they White, Black, Red, Brown, freed or indentured, or the forty plus Black men who would ride by his side in honor during the whole duration of the war.
The NAACP brings a new meaning to hate as they have accepted the monies from the very people whose ancestors derailed the African people from the path of social vertical mobility already taking place in the South as the whole of the country moved toward the industrial revolution. The NAACP has now moved the Dream of King to the back of the bus as he had forewarned them and his own lieutenants would happen if they attacked the Confederate Flag; a Flag that belongs to the Southern people and their ancestors who are left to protect it and those who served under it.
The only reward for this treason will go to the poverty pimps and scant for their organizations, and for those who put them up to it just like their carpetbagger ancestors, a clear path for more stealing. Black folks duped again as time will show very soon for those who commit this sacrilege. God bless you.
Your brother,
HK
Your brother,
HK
