Back to the main articles page
An Open Report / The End Of The Year
On Wednesday, December 16, 2009, I would conduct a series of radio interviews, on the legality of the city of Asheville seating an atheist on it’s Council in defiance of the State Constitution prohibiting such an action. Along beside Mr. Bothwell, a spirited debate and interview would be conducted by local radio personality Matt Mattan. That exclusive live radio interview was covered by Mr. Terry Lee Edgerton, and hopefully will be aired by You Tube soon.
Later on the same evening, I would be asked to conduct a similar interview will national TV host Alan Colmes, and again alongside Mr. Bothwell. What began as an interview on the legality of Mr. Bothwell taking a seat on Council, soon became an attack on me, a black man defending the Confederate cause of 1861, and the audacity that I have for carrying that Flag across the country dressed in a Confederate uniform.
It is important to note that I have no qualms about debating Colmes about the defense of my homeland, then or now. However, it is also important to note that Mr. Colmes is no fool. He quickly access the situation about Bothwell. He knew that this was a States Rights issue as well, and quickly ascertained the similarities that the Southern people had made about the federal government usurping it’s States Rights in 1861. He knew that what the framers of the Constitution had in mind when it spoke about a religious test was in no way the same situation in the declaration that one must believe in God to hold an elected office within the State. Colmes attempt to depict me as some head scratching Uncle Tom would fail on this night because he had met his match; a loyal Southern man who just happened to be Black like the many thousands of others who had not only gone off to war with a man that he called Master, Family and Friend, but had stayed at home making the implements of war, providing the food stuffs for General Lee’s beleagured army, and importantly helping to protect the home place while the men were away from an army from the North that had declared and carried out a total warfare policy against defenseless old men, women and children as they raped, burned, looted and murdered themselves into the most criminal victory in the annals of mankind.
There would be many who would call for an apology from Colmes and Fox News. However, I have been here before. Colmes action was no different than a Cub reporter, Alysia Patterson of the Associated Press who would spend almost an hour interviewing me on the same subject, and would try to paint a picture of me as a man who had some personal vendetta against athetist and quickly turned my words into a tainted message.
This year will come to an end with much unfinished business: The ban of the Southern Cross by American Legion Post #2 in the Veterans Day Parade in Knoxville, Tennessee; the ban of the Southern Cross at Salem High School in Georgia; the removal of the Honorable General Robert E. Lee’s name from the Boy Scout Council in Richmond, Virginia; the status of the statue of the Honorable President Jefferson Davis and his slave son Jim Limber at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia; the trials of Candice Hardwick, Bazz Childress, Paul McClaren, Tommy Defoe, and the quickly merging lawsuits against one Veita-Jackson Carter, the Principal of Hawthorne/Middle High School in Hawthorne, Florida and what appears to be heading for a lawsuit as we exhaust all possibilities for a solution to the seating of an atheist against State law in North Carolina.
Any and all who would like to send a donation to fund my war chest, please visit my website for details: www.southernheritage411.com, or send to my home address; 71 Buffalo Street, Asheville, N.C. 28806.
HK Edgerton
President
Southern Heritage 411
