"Such breathtaking ignorance displayed by a high SCV official does not appear in print everyday and therefore should be exhibited as a curiosity," said Attorney Lourie A. Salley, III, SLRC Chairman of the Board.

"Hawks owes an apology to the SLRC and the 49% of his constituents that voted for his run-off opponent," Salley added.

The SLRC Board of Directors offers the following critique of the Hawks statement.

1. Upon investigation and belief, Jones had no significant part in securing the apology.

2. A favorable article from a liberal source should come as no surprise to anyone, considering how outrageous and devoid from reality the statements by Aycock Principal Melissa Harrelson were.

3. As anyone who has worked Confederate Heritage school cases knows, school officials usually carefully mask their bias against Confederate symbols by claiming it is a "discipline issue."  Off-the-planet statements like that of Harrelson are very rare.  Because she was so far out of line, an apology was predictable to even a casual observer.

4. Because of an institutional bias against Confederate symbols among school administrators and an alarming erosion of discipline in government schools, schools in the South almost never cooperate with heritage groups in protecting the rights of students to display Southern symbols.  "Working quietly behind the scenes" in concert with local SCV Camps has preceded every school case the SLRC has handled.  In Madison County Kentucky the parents of Tim Castorina were told by the Superintendent to go ahead and sue the school board rather than be allowed an administrative hearing on the Confederate symbols ban.  After 5 years in court and a successful trip to the 6th Circuit the case is now settling with a change in the school's policy and the payment of attorney's fees.

5. In almost every case within our purview students were honorably displaying Confederate symbols, and the school acted unreasonably and against the overwhelming wishes of students and parents, with no proper due process allowed.

6. School cases are the most difficult cases to pursue in court and are fraught with traps for the diligent as well as the unwary.  We at the SLRC believe we cannot turn our back on our youth.  When the students stand up for what is right we see it as our duty to try and help them - else who will polish the headstones when Commander Hawks and his friends are no more?

7. The SCV General Executive Council of which Hawks is now a part has provided thousands of dollars in support of the Castorina litigation.

8. Commander Hawks timidity on school cases, vigils and the protection of basic civil rights for SCV members is well known and certainly puts his comments in perspective.

The SLRC is non-profit, tax exempt, South Carolina public law firm that specializes in cases involving Southern Heritage violations.

Gentlemen;

Below is an excellent article by one of the "liberal" newspapers.  Isn't it amazing what local leaders such as Gilbert Jones can accomplish without lawsuits, protests, vigils and civil rights law firms. They just quietly work behind the scenes to solve the problems. Even more amazing is the fact that a liberal news paper would publish such a truthful article.

I look forward to seeing all y'all at the GEC meeting in a few weeks.

Click here: Guilford schools 'sorry' for linking group to KKK

With highest regards,

Charles Hawks
ANV Commander

September 6, 2002

By TOM STEADMAN, Staff Writer
News & Record

GREENSBORO -- Guilford County Schools officials apologized to local leaders of the United Daughters of the Confederacy Thursday afternoon, saying they made a "poor decision" last week when a middle school principal halted the UDC's annual essay and art contest and compared the group to the Ku Klux Klan.

"We want to sincerely apologize for anything we said or did that was offensive to the UDC," Aycock Principal Melissa Harrelson and teacher Jean Botzis wrote in a letter given to officers of the Guilford UDC chapter at an hour-long meeting at the school.

"We made a poor decision based on incorrect information," the letter said. "We were trying to respond to a parent's request to remove their child from any further recognition or participation in the essay contest. It could have been handled better and we are sorry that it wasn't."

UDC leaders said the essay and art contest, offered to local school students for more than 50 years on a voluntary basis, will resume at Aycock later this year.

Contest topics, suggested by the UDC chapter's historian, vary each year. This year's suggested topics for high school entrants included "The War Between the States in the North Carolina Mountains."

Ten local schools participated in this year's contest, held last spring. A total of 67 students won awards, and the UDC gave $395 in prizes, Bissell said.

Harrelson, Botzis and central office administrator Barry Williams represented the school system at the meeting, said Ellen Bissell, program chairman of the Guilford UDC chapter. "They were very, very apologetic," Bissell said.

"They sincerely were distressed that all this had happened. I think we'll have a good relationship in the future."

The flap broke out last week, when Botzis sent a letter to the UDC, a heritage group of female descendants of Confederate veterans, requesting that the name of an eighth-grade essay contest winner or any other entrants at Aycock not be entered in further competition or published in affiliation with the UDC.

That letter said the "philosophy and goals" of the UDC conflicted with those of Aycock Middle School. Then, in a telephone conversation that day with the News & Record, Harrelson, the Aycock principal, described the UDC as a "modern-day version of the Ku Klux Klan."

Harrelson refused to discuss Thursday's meeting with the News & Record. But Aycock PTA President David Hoggard said that the school's initial letter to the UDC had resulted from a parent's complaint.

"This parent was investigating something they had heard about a post-Civil War linkage between the UDC and the Ku Klux Klan on the Internet," he said.

Hoggard said he found the same information on the Internet by typing the words "UDC" and "Ku Klux Klan" into a search engine.  That led him to an article a Public Broadcasting Service Web site that linked the carving of the UDC-sponsored Confederate monument at Stone Mountain, Ga., with the founding of the modern KKK at the same location.

Harrelson's mistake was in making an "unfortunate choice of words" regarding the UDC, Hoggard said.

Margaret Carver, president of the local UDC chapter, described Thursday's meeting as "cordial."

"I think they truly were sorry," Carver said.

Contact Tom Steadman at 574-5583 or at tsteadman@news-record.com
See details of all the day's news in tomorrow's News & Record

The SLRC is non profit Tax exempt South Carolina public law firm that specializes in cases involving Southern Heritage violations.

PLEDGE TODAY!