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An Open Letter To President George W. Bush / Putting An End To The Cold War Between The States


Dear Mr.. President,

Several months ago at a Town Hall Meeting in the State Capitol of
Raleigh, North Carolina , as you delivered your speech on your proposed
social security program , I climbed out onto the railing of the
second floor balcony and asked you to read and accept a copy of
a letter dated November 8, 2004 of which I had mailed to you. At
that time you promised that you would read it when you were in flight
aboard Air Force 1 . Several months later as I prepared to leave
for the burial of the Honorable Senator Strom Thurmond where I would
march in his funeral procession adorned in the uniform of the Southern
soldier , while brandishing his glorious banner ; I would receive
from the White House a letter from a young lady who professed to
represent you. Her reply to my letter was that you were too busy
to speak or meet with me about the contents of said letter. I had
requested a meeting with you to discuss ways of achieving social
justice for the millions of my Southern family who find themselves
victims of prejudice, discrimination, murder, folks fired from their
jobs, forced evictions from their homes, our babies institutionally
bullied , intimidated , and stripped of their limited 1st Amendment
Rights at the schoolhouse doors, and all this for trying to express
their pride in who they are ; Southern !

The irony here for me is that as I listen and watch you, probably
the greatest and most courageous President that America ever had,
with the exception of the President who served the Confederate States,
and members of your Administration talk about the problems of the
people of the middle east , while trying to broker an end to the
sectional and sectarian violence that has plagued them for far too
long ; that you would not muster the same courage , see and understand
the parallels that exist in our very own country as the Cold War
Between the States rages on, and help bring it to an honorable end.

I expressed to you at that town hall meeting that I was a loyal
Republican , and one who had voted not only twice for you , but
also your dad, Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon. Last week the Executive
Committee of the Asheville Buncombe County, North Carolina Republican
Party ask that I join them to discuss a move by our Democratic majority
City Council that returned our local elections to a partisan mode
; an effort that most as I do , see as an attempt to grasp and retain
power . At this meeting our Chairman called upon one of the precinct
chairs to give the invocation. He began his prayer by praising Abraham
Lincoln and stating that we were all not slaves now because of Lincoln
and the Republican Party that we all now served. I vehemently protested
this rhetoric and later told all present that they were headed in
the wrong direction, especially if they wanted to secure the Black
vote and Black members to this Party , and furthermore needed to
be educated to those ends , and needed badly an education committee.
I got just what I was asking for ; the committee, and appointment
as it’s Chair. Several folks present volunteered to serve on the
committee. As of yet I have not convened , but shall right after
I deliver a speech to the Republican Women’s Action Committee on
Thursday evening, July 19, 2007. Part of what I shall say to these
ladies whose main focus appears to be attracting Black folks to
this Party is ; this is not the Radical Republican Party of Lincoln
, and that one of the reasons and probably the main reason that
Black people stay away from this Party is because far too many believe
that it is the Party of Lincoln , and that they remember the stories
told by their ancestors of those Radical Republicans who during
the period of so called Reconstruction , terrorized them with the
Union League, bribed unscrupulous Blacks, or forced their families
to vote for those Radical Republicans while doing any and everything
to separate them from the Southern White man , and after they had
gendered up so much hate , left them high and dry after they made
a deal during the Rutherford B. Hayes election .

The tragedy for those of us who wear the skin of the Southern Black
is that we have been systematically stripped from the historical
place of honor that we earned alongside that man who we called Master
, and he has had to endure the burdens of evil of the world wide
complicity in the economic institution of slavery ; all because
he lost his honorable stand against his brother who now controls
the media, government, and public school systems that he established
in 1865 to cover up his unlawful and unconstitutional activities
against my homeland , the Southland of America.

On October 14, 2006, as I had done on October 14, 2002, on an historic
journey where I would march some 1,600 miles adorned in the uniform
of the Southern soldier, carrying the Southern Cross to the State
Capitol of Texas seeking justice for my Southern family and a return
in the Supreme Court building of the Southern plaques that had been
removed in dishonor, I began with my baby brother a March across
the great State of Virginia, to the White House with the same plea
found in my letter to you of 2004. I shall continue that March in
late September some 89 miles from the White House, just outside
Charlottesville in hopes that you will not turn your back on the
peace delegation from the South that I bring with me, who only want
to be treated like all loyal and patriotic Americans. My only hope
is that when I leave the boundaries of the White House to began
my re-union March Across Dixie on October 14, 2007 , that this time
when I enter Austin that it will not be in a state of manqué
, but will carry a message from my President that the glorious banner
that I carry is truly a venerated symbol as declared by the United
States Congress . As a Black man whose national origin is one of
a Confederate Southern American , and truly a Patriotic American
who served this country honorably as a Vietnam era Veteran, may
God bless you, America, and Dixie the Southland of America ; my
homeland.

Yours Faithfully,
H.K. Edgerton