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Presentation To Florida Senate
Honorable members of this committee, and Honorable members of the public. My name is HK Edgerton. I am President of Southern Heritage 411, Chairman of the Board of Advisors Emeritus of the Southern Legal Resource Center, Co-Founder of the Black Student Center at the University of Minnesota and a former student Regent of the same, past 1st Vice and President of the Asheville Branch of the NAACP, past represenative of the Black Leadership Caucus of District 50 in North Carolina, Recipient of the National Sons of Confederate Veterans H.L. Hunley Award, Recipient of the United Daughters of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis Medal, and the son of Mrs. Annabelle Edgerton, the only Black woman to receive a Confederate State Funeral.
I am here to speak in opposition to SCR 184 and SB 472. And I believe that Mrs. Bethune would concur, as well as Dr. Martin Luther King.
And while I did not know the Honorable General Kirby Smith, I know a lot about his kind. And I thank the Almighty God every day, just like I’m sure Alexander Darnes must have for sending him a Southern White man like General Smith and his family.
Alexander was with General Smith from boyhood, through the Mexican American War and the War for Southern Independence, serving as his Aid De Camp. At the urging of General Smith, his family would send and pay for Alexander to attend medical school. Alexander became the first Black doctor in the City of Jacksonville, Florida, and the second doctor in the state. And in the late 1800’s, this former Black Confederate soldier, Dr. Alexander Darnes, saved countless lives during a yellow fever epedemic.
We would not be here today had it not been for the actions of a deranged young man, Dylan Roof, and the photoshopped picture of him holding the Southern Cross in one hand and the pistol he used to commit a masacre.
However, God, in His infinite wisdom, has given you the opportunity to set right a terrible wrong placed upon the Southern White man for making a glorious stand against those who would illegally invade our homeland, and whose siblings in the 21st century continue to try and separate the African people from him, their true friend and family; men like Smith, Lee, Forrest, Hood and Morgan.
This body should not be talking about taking down the statue of General Smith; it should be educating the masses about his glorious and wonderful life and, if anything, placing him and Dr. Darnes in your Veterans Hall of Fame.
I leave you with the words that Rev. Mack Lee, body servant of the Honorable General Robert E. Lee, got himself educated from the funds left him by General Lee. He started the first credit union in America to help the now freed Africans, started more churches in the North and Southlands of America than any man of his time: “Get yourselves educated, buy some property, keep your faith in the Almighty God and, beyond all else, put trust in only the southern White man.”
In the year 2000, I would don the uniform of the Southern soldier, marched 20 miles a day, six days a week, and I found the true story about those of his African and White families who earned a place of honor in the War for Southern Independence. God bless you, and thanks for allowing me to speak before this body.
HK Edgerton
Member, Save Southern Heritage Florida
