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An Open Report / 8th Annual Confederate Heritage Youth Day – Clover, South Carolina
On Saturday, September 29, 2012, alongside members of the Private Thomas E. Caldwell Camp #31 Sons of Confederate Veterans, and others, I would deliver to the many young people and their families who would gather in Clover, South Carolina to learn of the lives of the many men and women of the South who made an honorable Stand in the War for Southern Independence a message of warning.
I would tell them that on this day as I observed the atmosphere of love and celebration that they shared at this gathering as they heard the tales of valor and legends of bravery of their ancestors, Red, Yellow, Black and White, freed or indentured, and the Christian Cross of St. Andrew that they bore, that I was compelled to be sad. Sad for that which had become a vehicle of pride on this day; they would be forced to put asunder as it had for the young Candice Yvonna Hardwick of Latta, South Carolina, who on a day just like this would hear a different tale than the one told in the public schools that she, like them, would attend and be forced to remember her Southern ancestors in shame, as well as the Christian symbol, “the Christian Cross of St.Andrew” that served as the Colors the Southern soldiers would rally around in battle, and the one symbol that would lift our spirits as they who had claimed victory against us would carry into the 21st century an agenda to destroy that pride via their established public school system and a political correct judiciary composed of men of the North and unfortunately from the South whose only loyalty is to the check of their new masters and the boats and club memberships they enjoy.
I would tell them how the Stand of Candice had eventually helped lead to her demise, and would share with them the letter that I had written to President Obama asking him to pardon this baby who, in a depressed moment, had done wrong to her family. I told them that when Vice President Biden visits my home town in Asheville, North Carolina on Tuesday, October 2, 2012, that as I had done with President Bush in a town hall meeting, I would try and deliver this letter asking for a pardon for young Candice.
All in all, it had been a great day in Dixie.
