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The Boogeyman was not there; An Open Report and Reply (Faith Missionary Academy and Hawthorne Middle High)
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009
From: Zane H, zh812red@yahoo.com
Dear H.K.,
I’m 13 yrs. old and i live in Palm Coast, FL. i have seen your video’s on you tube. i think what you stand for and what you do is very inspirational and needs to be spread across the CSA. i don’t know if you are familiar with bunnell, FL; but years ago they built FPC, (flagler palm coast high school) a school for all whites, if I’m not mistaken. they soon after built a little red school house for all the black kids. a woman i know and highly respect named Carla Taylor was part of a protesting to stop the discrimination. her protest worked. it is my understanding that they left the red school house up, but i think it burned down years after. now everyone in Bunnell and near-by areas gos to FPC. there is a small alternative school behind FPC called pathways academy. Mrs. Taylor is the principal at pathways. i have drastically let her down and many others that have tried to help me and i know this would mean a lot to her and to many others. personally i think it’s about time that the students need to learn about their heritage and stop hating the flag that they should love most. I’m the only one besides my mom that knows about this e-mail. so I’m leaving school website address at the bottom of this message. along with Mrs.Taylor’s email address.i repeat, she doesn’t know about this e-mail, but i think it would be a good idea to ask her what she thinks.please, this means a lot to me.
SCHOOL WEBSITE: http://flaglerschools.com/schools/
CARLA TAYLOR’S EMAIL: taylorc@flaglerschools.com
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From: HK Edgerton, hk.edgerton@gmail.com
Date: September 17, 2009Dear Zane,
God bless you. On Thursday morning, September 10, 2009, I had the opportunity to be the guest speaker at Faith Missionary Academy in Grutli Laager, Tennessee. The Honorable Pastor Stacey D. Smith would open up his school to the community at large.
My message would resonate as it always does about the place of honor and dignity earned by my African ancestors under the Southern Cross beside a man that he called not only Master, but also Family and Friend, and of the causes and struggles faced by these honorable people that led them to war against their fellow country men from the region of the country called the North. And most importantly I spoke of the continued efforts to divide and separate Southern Black folks from their Southern White family with the desired intent of breaking the spirit once and for all of the Southern White man.
After I spoke, the laudatory and outpouring of love that I received from all was humbling, and shall forever be forged in my memory as one of my greatest days on Gods’ earth. “The Bogeyman was not here”!
On Friday morning, September 11, 2009, I would receive a phone call from a dear lady who resides in Hawthorne, Florida. She would relate to me a story of a Black Principal of Hawthrone Middle/High School who had every intent on banning her students from wearing any and all clothing that depicted the Southern Cross. She would relate to me that there had never been any trouble or disturbances between any of the students over the display of the flag. Yet it appeared that the Principal all of a sudden manufactured this discourse. The Principal she told me had outright flatly denied any conversation on the matter; her decision was final. She asked me would I help? Later that day she would again call and tell me that the Principal after having visited my website and hearing a great outcry from the public, changed her mind and had agreed not only to allow me to speak to her students, but would let them vote on whether to impose a ban on clothing that depicted the Confederate Flag shortly after my appearance.
On Monday morning, September 14, 2009, I would arrive at Hawthorne Middle/High School donned in the uniform of the Southern soldier, get out of my car with the Southern Cross in hand and ask a very nice student where the Principal’s office was located. I would drive over to the building where the young man had indicated and decided that I would carry some of the articles I always carry for teaching aids (my shirts, the Uncivil War Book, copies of the Honorable Rev. R.L. Dabney’s letter to the Union General Howard who was in charge of the Freedman’s Bureau, dated September, 11, 1865, and other material from the historic March Across Dixie, laminated copies of Black Confederate soldiers etc.).
The Principal, Ms. Veita Jackson-Carter, I found to be a very amiable person, and I told her that I loved her for having the courage and sense of fair play in inviting me to come and speak to her school before she made what I described as not only a rash, but unwarranted decision to ban the flag of the Southern people.
I spent about a half an hour along with her discussing the aforementioned materials that I had come with, leaving her a sample of all. She told me that she had changed the format that I would used for the day, partly out of her concern for fears that she didn’t know what kind of reaction she might encounter from her students. I felt somewhat disappointed because she told me that I would not be speaking directly to her students, but from the media center via closed circuit television. She also told me that she had handled several thousand phone calls from the outside public who had expressed a desire to hear me speak. Again out of fear of what to expect, she had decided to close her school to the public. I expressed my disappointment for that decision.
When I told her that I needed to return to my car to bring my flag and more of the same items I had given to her with her permission for my presentation, she would agree, but felt that even though I saw my flag as a badge of honor, some of students and staff might not think so, and because of those feelings, I might need a security escort. She began to call for the school Resource Officer and I told her even though it was her school, I didn’t feel the need for what she proposed. She would escort me herself to my car and back to the media center amongst some very polite students.
Ms. Carter informed me that I would have only 15 minutes to give my presentation. I was greatly disappointed in this change of affairs, but for at least twenty five minutes, I said all that I could think of to at least stimulate the thinking process of the students of Hawthrone Middle/High of all the reasons that no Southern child of God should ever be asked to commit an act, let alone turn his back on or shame the memory of their honorable ancestors.
Ms. Carter would allow me after the media presentation to visit the History Class. I was informed by the History teacher that her class had several questions to ask me. One young Black girl was the first to respond. She began by saying that she didn’t mind them pointing to the White students wearing their shirts that expressed their heritage as long as she could wear her Obama shirt. I stopped her right there and explained to her that here lies within the problem. I told her that the wearing of the Confederate flag was not only the White children’s heritage, it was a shared Southern Heritage. I then had her come and hold up each of my Dixie Outfitters and Southern Heritage 411 shirts that not only depicted Black Confederate soldiers, but also the one that carries my image from the Historic March across Dixie. I was only sorry that I did not have the permission to honor the request from her and her peers to get one of the shirts because I felt that I would need to have the permission from the Principal who was not now present.
On the blackboard of the history class was written a question; How were the Southern slaves treated? Time constraints finally stopped me from painting a picture far different from the one painted by folks like Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Northern school teachers who had come here ever since the establishment of the public school in 1865, whose designs was to inculcate in the thinking process of our children a northern virtuosity that is to this very day plain and simple poppycock meant to force our children to hold their heads down in shame of the memory of their ancestors for going to war to protect their homeland that had been invaded by a man that would bankrupt them while violating all Constitutional Law in the process. His main weapon of choice had been then and now the Southern Black man.
I would leave the History teacher several of my shirts and other materials to advance my argument that trained cadre of Black folks across the Southland of America provide the Southern army with all the implements of war, food stuffs to feed the army, protected the home places while the men were away, went off to war and in many cases like the men of General Forrest whose image was with them on one of my shirts, with his very own caption: these men fought and stayed with me and no better Confederates ever lived.
I would re-enter the lobby of the school, take several photographs, give a shirt to a young black staff member who I was told was the principal of the Middle school, hug several students, joke with one of the black teachers that I had better leave before I got put out. She told me in a very serious tone; we are not like that around here. we enjoyed your visit and presentation.
I never got to say goodbye to Ms. Carter. I was told that she had indicated that she was not to be disturbed. However, again may God bless her for allowing the Table of Brotherhood to come to her school, and for a moment allowing the Sons of former slaves to sit down at that table with the Sons of former Slave owners with a dialogue to heal the wounds that those who would divide us had so eloquently prepared. The Bogeyman was not there at Hawthrone Middle/High.
After having said, Zane, I hope that Ms. Carla will invite me to her truth to tell the students a different story than the one meant to divide us.
HK Edgerton
