SLRC UPDATE:
8 February 2003

Southern Poverty Law Center
Intelligence Briefs

Neo-Confederates

A 'March Through Dixie' Bewilders (Southern Poverty Law Center) Onlookers (and nobody else)

Photo by Valerie Downes

Bright and early on Oct. 14, a 55-year-old man in a Confederate Army uniform strode down Biltmore Avenue in Asheville, N.C., battle flag on his shoulder, headed for the interstate. Passing drivers honked and waved. “God bless you, Mr. Edgerton!” one well-wisher hollered.

Since the late '90s, H.K. Edgerton has earned local notoriety by staging one-man protests of Confederate “heritage violations,” such as attempts to remove the Confederate battle flag from public schools. Now Edgerton has embarked on a 1,385-mile “March Through Dixie,” designed to carry his idiosyncratic (which means the SPLC doesn't understand HK's love of the South) message of “heritage not hate” to folks in the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and finally Texas - and also raise some serious bucks (unfortunately it will not approach the $134 million Morris Dees has bilked out of the American People) for the cause.

He'll be noticed, partly because the man in gray is black. Edgerton's ancestors were slaves. He stepped down just four years ago from chairing his local NAACP chapter. Now he's on the board of Black Mountain's Southern Legal Resource Center, run by (insulting defamatory expletive deleted) attorney Kirk Lyons, who inspired Edgerton to become what Lyons calls a “born-again Confederate.”

Since then, Edgerton has become a darling of the (ignorant, insulting and defamatory expletive deleted) wing of the “heritage” movement. His flag-waving protests protests have drawn renewed attention to a highly unorthodox version (read real history, not politically correct propaganda) in which Africans were brought to America (in Edgerton's own words) as a gift from “God in his infinite wisdom,” and “the only one who cared about the African was the white man in the South.”

His favorite white man in the South stands to benefit handsomely from the march. The bulk of the $2 million Edgerton hopes to raise will go to Lyons' “heritage” law firm; the rest goes to the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), the traditionally moderate “heritage” group that recently took a turn toward blatant racism TM (self promoting SPLC ad deleted; see also the SPLC definition of "racism" which is defined as anyone Morris Dees doesn't like) A Web site set up to publicize the march urges supporters to pledge $1 a mile; for an extra $50, they can purchase one of the three flags Edgerton will carry on each daily route.

PLEASE SEND YOUR TAX-DEDUCTIBLE CONTRIBUTION TO:

SOUTHERN LEGAL RESOURCE CENTER
PO BOX 1235
BLACK MOUNTAIN, NC 28711

Sincerely,

Allison Schaum
Case Manager
2330 SJ Workman Highway
Woodruff, SC 29388
864-476-0656

slrc@crystalink.com

For more information about HK's March Across Dixie contact: www.southerncaucus.org/hkedgerton.htm