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An Open Letter / Page 2
Terry Lee and I would leave Cleveland, Georgia on this afternoon
of April 14, 2007 , amidst a storm of love from our Southern family.
Instead of the goodbye speech that so many had come to hear me give,
it had become a family re-union and now a cry to carry on that much
harder ; to seek vindication for my homeland. The following week
I would find myself in Sparta, Tennessee speaking to the Sons of
Confederate Veterans Camp there , and to many in the community who
came to hear what kind of message would be given from a Black Southerner
that Commander Savage had touted in his communiqué to the
public would bring the house down . To a full house I would speak
not only of those brave men who had gone off to war to defend their
homeland that had been invaded, but also of the honor earned by
those folks who like me , but yet erased from history by those who
would use my Southern African family during the period of so called
Reconstruction to keep the Radical Republican Party in power , to
justify all the looting and down right robbery , and any means to
get at the White man of the South who he had defeated on the battlefield,
but not in his heart.On we would push through the Great State of Tennessee dragging the
table of brotherhood that a man once touted that he dreamed of where
he would sit down with the sons of former slaves , and the sons
of former slave owners. The only difference was that in this state
where he would loose his life is that we had the necessary ingredients
to make that dream a reality ; truth and the love of the flag that
these Southern men, one called slave and the other called master,
together carried into battle in defense of their homeland that had
been invaded. On to Knoxville we would go to deliver this same message,
only to have the local television station to proclaim that I the
former head of the Asheville NAACP , a man who had walked some 1,600.1
miles into Texas adorned in the Southern soldiers uniform carrying
the Southern Cross, who had marched from Old Fort, North Carolina
some 400 miles into Charleston, South Carolina, carrying the Southern
Cross, and then as a color bearer would march in the historic Hunley
Funeral procession, who had marched with the youngest Sons of Confederate
Veterans Camp Commander(the Honorable Fred Taylor ) from Littleton,
North Carolina at the site of a Confederate monument which commemorated
a White and Black Confederate soldier into Richmond, Virginia ,
who had marched adorned in the uniform of the Confederate soldier
in the funeral procession of the Honorable Strom Thurmond in Columbia
, South Carolina , who had marched from Cash Town Pennsylvania into
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania along the same route that no other had
done adorned the uniform of the Confederate soldier since the battle
of Gettysburg to protest the hanging of the Southern Cross from
a constructed gallows; as an unlikely candidate to deliver the keynote
address for Confederate Memorial Day on the grounds of the historic
Old Grey Cemetery . On to the beautiful city of Springfield, Tennessee
Terry lee and would go to once again deliver the keynote for Confederate
Memorial day where we would draw praise from the Assistant City
Manager and the many who would attend to hear our message about
honor earned and stolen from our honorable Southern Soldiers and
the family he has left behind. Our journey through the great State
of Tennessee would end at the Victorian Fair and Re-enactment on
June 9, 2007 , which is presented by the Oakland’s Association and
Oakland’s Historic House Museum in cooperation with the City of
Murfreesboro, Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp # 33, Murfreesboro
Parks and Recreation Department, and Stones River National Battlefield.
It was proper that our joie de vivre would bring us here to a place
that we had been warned not to come again by a man who touted himself
as a minister. Here in Murfreesboro, we had found the love that
we called Southern as we watched the little Black babies play amongst
the flags of the Southern soldier that had once set free this Southern
town from an invader whose goal is still to set us apart.I now make ready to finish the March into the Nations Capitol and
the Re-union March Across Dixie once again into the great State
of Texas where I shall tout the message of an honorable people and
their children who should be allowed in peace to honor a soldier
, and his symbols .