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SLRC UPDATE: SLRC Weekly Update
Greetings Compatriots:
This has been a wonderful week and very busy. We want to highlight the wonderful week that HK has had thus far on his March to Richmond. He has been received well by many southerners and has absolutely had a wonderful time. Here is today's synopsis followed by an article in the Petersburg Progress Index.
March to Richmond
Today started very early at 6:15 a.m. It was quite a lovely day for HK and Fred until they arrived in Petersburg. There were a few street people that gave HK a hard time but he didn't let it bother him. The police officers of Petersburg were quick to offer assistance for HK and HK assured the officers that everything was fine. HK said that the resistance in Petersburg was minor compared to all the love that has been shown to him today.
HK is on the front page of the Petersburg Progress Index and Fred said that it was an excellent story.
Tomorrow he will be marching from Appomattox to the DuPont Spruance plant in Richmond so come on out and march!
Black Confederate marching from N.C. to Richmond
DINWIDDIE - An African-American man from western North Carolina marched through Dinwiddie County on U.S. Route 1 yesterday, waving his huge Confederate flag as he headed toward Richmond.
Black and white children in a Dinwiddie school bus waved back at H.K.
His march will conclude next week in Richmond, the capital of what had been the capitol for the Confederate States of America.
One of Edgerton's goals was to show support for seven workers at the duPont Company plant near Richmond who were told they had to take signs of the Confederacy off their cars if they wanted to use the company parking lot.
Linda Derr, a spokesperson for duPont, said, "The company has a longstanding policy regarding a respectful work environment. We have a diverse staff here. We don't allow the Confederate flag to be displayed anywhere on our property. We ask employees to cover such flags if they are on their vehicles. But they are allowed to park here."
"Richmond can't afford to be lost by Southerners again," Edgerton said.
"I have experienced nothing but love as I walk 15 miles a day through North Carolina and Virginia," he said. He stopped at mid-day Thursday to pay respects at the Confederate monument near the old county courthouse.
Edgerton, now director of the Southern Legal Resources Center in Black
Mountain, N.C., said, "We are family in the South. It is a Northern lie that taught the world we hated each other after the War for Southern
Edgerton, in an Asheville Citizen-Times article published in late 2002, stressed that he supports Southern heritage which, he said was not about slavery, which he abhors. "Black folks were in a place of honor and dignity in the war," he said. "I've said it many times - we made all the foodstuffs for the armies; there were trained cadres of black folks that made all the weapons of war. If it hadn't been for all those black folks, that war wouldn't have lasted four days, much less four years."
Edgerton's 160 mile march from Littleton, N.C. to Richmond isn't his first such march. He said he was in the color guard at the funeral for the Confederate victims of a Civil War submarine battle in Charleston, S.C., this year. "And I attended the funeral for Sen. Strom Thurmond in South Carolina last year. I wore my full Confederate uniform. "Thurmond was a great man who served all races," he said.
When Black History Month is observed, our society no longer honors the memory of blacks who loved the white people, he said, mentioning the Rev. Mac Lee, Gen. Robert E. Lee's cook, who started many churches after the Civil War. And he points to John Leech, who walked home to Littleton, N.C., hand in hand with a Confederate soldier, bringing money and letters to Confederate families.
"There were many black Confederate heroes who you never hear about. What about the blacks who helped in Confederate hospitals and gun powder production sites," he said.
"The Confederate flag is a Christian symbol. The cross in the flag is the Christian cross of St. Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland," he said.
"I also walk for the Carolina children who are told they can't wear shirts that carry the Confederate flag on them," he said. "If I could, I would walk to New York City and place a Confederate flag at the foot of the Statue of Liberty to remind people that the South has never been fully reconstructed."
Edgerton was escorted through Dinwiddie by Oliver Wells of McKenney, a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Brunswick County. "My great-great uncle was buried in Brunswick during the Civil war," Wells said.
"Tell the people in Richmond that I will see them next Tuesday or Wednesday," Edgerton said with a smile. He will walk to Petersburg today and then he plans to take a break on the weekend before marching through Chesterfield and Richmond.
* Ben Bagwell can be reached at 732-3456, ext. 260. ŠThe Progress-Index 2004 Please visit our website at www.slrc-csa.org and click on the "How You Can Help" tab. We accept Visa , MasterCard, Discover http://www.slrc-csa.org/site/helpus.php and paypal: https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=slrc%40slrc-csa.org
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Our address is SLRC, P.O. Box 1235, Black Mountain, NC 28711. Phone: 828-669-5189
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Allison Schaum
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