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An Open Report / Confederate History Month / Confederate Memorial and Decoration Day Events
People often speak about Dr. Martin Luther Kings speech on the Capitol Mall that he titled the “I Have a Dream” as his finest. King remarked in that speech that he had a dream that one day the sons of former slaves and former slave owners would one day sit down at the Table of Brotherhood. The irony is that so many of his lower lieutenants, former protege, and Northern protagonist, black and white, have worked tirelessly with their planned attack on the Southern Cross and the honorable Southerners who fought in the unjust war forced upon them by the actions of Abraham Lincoln, to move us all farther away from that reality; as they only seek to enrich their coffers at the expense of unsuspecting Southern black folks who have been the weapon of choice against Southern Judeo / Christian White folks since John Brown crossed into Virginia at Harper’s Ferry and killed a Black man at the station there.
At the invitation of the Jefferson Davis Camp # 305, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Sunday afternoon June 7, 2009, under the auspices of the Confederate Memorial Committee of the District of Columbia , I would attend a Confederate Memorial Sevince at the Confederate Monument in Arlington National Cemetery that marked the 201st anniversary of the birth of CSA President Jefferson Davis.
This event would conclude a whirl wind of events for me, the son of former slaves who had truly not only sat at the table of brotherhood as King had dreamed, but also had been shown the love given his African ancestors of past in lieu of the economic institution of slavery. A love that so many had tried to push asunder with not only their actions during so called Reconstruction, but to this very day with the distortions of history spoken in attempts to paint a picture of virtue for a man who had come to my homeland, the South land of America that was not deserved. Never did I imagine that before this day would end; the reality of the fore mentioned statement would come to fruition as the keynote speaker from New Jersey, Ron Maxwell ( film Director of Gettysburg and Gods and Generals) would deliver his speech.
As Mr.Maxwell spoke of crimes of omission of filmmakers and how he had tried to give accurate accounting’s in his mentioned films, I could not help wonder when he and his associates would make a film about those Black Confederate soldiers who had gone off to war with their Southern White families and of their families who had stayed at home , making the implements of war, providing the food stuffs, protecting the families left behind, and in many cases fighting beside the men of General Lee’s beleaguered army.
It didn’t take long for the true Yankee blood of Maxwell to surface. He said that while he tried to make pictures of the war with true reflections, he had a problem with men like Lee and Jackson who would fight for a government that would fight to maintain the economic institution of slavery.He went on to quote Lincoln and to give note to the honorable efforts of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Harriet Tubman and her underground railroad. By this time for me, Maxwell had crossed the line into the very territory that I fought daily to eradicate; distortions of history and subtle attacks upon my honorable Southern family. I knew that I could and would not let those who remained leave Arlington, especially my babies, with this as the prevailing thought of the day. May God bless Fred Taylor, and Mr. Thomas Moore, the Chairman of the Confederate Memorial Committee for giving me the opening to address Mr. Maxwell’s comments.
Mr. Moore told those gathered that I would give the benediction. However, I seized the moment to correct some of Maxwell’s Northern propaganda. I told the audience to take their children home and look up the truth about which government wanted to continue slavery; ( look for the Corwin Amendment which stated that no amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, or any of the three constitutional amendments the scalawag Lincoln proposed in his December 1862 State of the Union message to Congress). I told them how the great Commonwealth of Virginia and her governing body was working diligently right up until days before the war began, to offer a meaningful emancipation to the African slave, not the so called freedom that Lincoln and his hench men left ( vagrant laws that pick up the so called freedman forcing him to work for the company store for a penny a day and charging him $200 a day for living expense). Time constraints would not allow me to continue, but with the urging of those gathered, I would recite Dr.Michael R. Bradley, State Commander of the Tennessee Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans poem, ” I Am Their Flag”.
I would be remiss in my accounting’s if I did not mention that the International Chief of Heritage Defense , Sons of Confederate Veterans would also bestow upon myself, Mr.Maxwell and a hero of the Iraq and Afghan Wars, the highest Camp Medal of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. I am humbly honored by the award. I would be mobbed by the audience as I existed the stage; they all wanted to hug me and thank me for saving the day.
