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Jena, Louisana/ attn. Paul Colford



Dear MR.Colford,

Yesterday,January 22,2008, AP carried a report on the events taking place in
Jena, Louisiana. In a caption of that report , you identified the Southern
Cross that an individual was carrying as the Klan Flag. Wrong! I too was in
Jena in December of 2007, as I made my way across Texas in celebration of
the 5 year historic RE-Union March Across Dixie, and I carried the Southern
Cross and was dressed in the uniform of the Southern soldier, and I can
assure you Sir, our flag is not the flag of the Klan.While those folks that
carried our beloved Southern flag have a First Amendment Right to carry any
flag that they choose in America; it is not the property of the Klan, and is
however, the flag of any Southerner who chooses to carry it, whether they be
Black or White.I personally do not agree of the actions used on that day
against King, nor do I find it appropiate that it was done. However, I will
fight for the right of any American to express peacefully their right to
demonstrate and express their feelings.

The people of Jena are a very decent people, both Black and White, and it is
a shame that Al and Jessee and the so called New Black Panther Party would
try with a culmination of lies to protray them any differently.I am so proud
of Channel 8 News out of Monroe, Louisana who would come to Jena and
interview Danny McDowell of Grayson, La. as we stood on the very same
grounds of the LaSalle courthouse, engulfed in the love that we would
received from the citizens that had been wronged.The real story of Jena was
written by only one media outlet, and that was from Mansfield down the road.
The Reconstruction agenda that Al and Jessee took to Jena is no better than
your attempt to disgrace our flag, and you should get it right. Those young
Black men in Jena deserve not to be treated as heroes, but only as the
criminals for the actions that they conducted. The many honorable Blacks
that went to Jena did not find a racist people, but only a Southern people
who have a right to feel that they were wronged.Please visit my web site at
:southernheritage411.com, for an accurate accounting, and get it right about
our flag.

You , nor those who now run for the highest office of this land will ever
give credence to the notion that America is a great nation until the record
is straight about an honorable people who went to war against their brother
who invaded their homeland, and the relations that they had for a man they
called not only slave, but also family and friend. The continous effort to
make those of us who are decendants of those slaves, traitors of our
homeland, the Southland of America,with some distorted view that we should
be indebted to the North and hate the very symbol that put us side by side
against that invader is an atrocity for the entire country, and a stain on
the honor and dignity earned by our ancestors. Please set the record
straight, and end this attack upon us with your bias against our flag and
it’s people.

HK Edgerton