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An Open Letter & Open Report / The Strawberry Festival / BOCC Meeting / DAC Meeting
MARCH 9, 2018
The Strawberry Festival / BOCC Meeting / DAC Meeting
Dear Ms. Lunelle,
Alongside the Judah P. Benjamin Camp #2210 Sons of Confederate Veterans and the Augusta Jane Evans Chapter #2640 of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, don in the uniform of the Southern soldier, down the streets of Plant City, Florida, we would make our way in the Annual Strawberry Festival parade to the delight of the spectators who would let their love flow upon us like the lava flows from a volcano.
My only regret on this day was that Nimrata Randhawa (Nikki Haley) was not there to view the spectacle of love. Before June of 2015, Haley supported flying the Confederate flag on the State House grounds in Columbia, South Carolina. On June 22, 2015, after viewing the photoshopped picture of Dylan Roof, with the gun he supposedly used in the Charleston Church shootings in one hand, and the beloved symbol, the Confederate Battle flag in the other, Haley ignored the 2000 concession to remove the flag from the Capitol dome, and have it placed on the Confederate soldiers’ monument where the Legislature said it belonged, never to be moved again.
Haley’s hypocritical statement… “These grounds (the State Capitol) are a place that everybody should feel a part of. What I realize now more than ever is people driving or walking by felt hurt and pain. No one should feel pain.” Haley also said, “there is a place for that flag,” but she added, “It’s not in a place that represents all people in South Carolina.”
I say hypocritical because it is plain that, on the Capitol grounds, there appears to be other cherished Southern symbols that hurt people’s feelings as they pass by the front doors of the Capitol; notably, the monument of President George Washington that was desecrated by the Yankees as they burned Columbia and, in 2011, covered up by the NAACP with a box enclosure during its annual rally honoring MLK Jr.
Black Tea Party activist Lloyd Marcus of Florida wrote, “The NAACP should stop putting its energy into symbolic statements like this and start doing more to address problems like high school dropout rates in the Black community.”
The Spartanburg Founder of the Tea Party, Karen Martin, said… “We don’t really care what the NAACP did.” She said, “They lost their credibility to be any sort of reasonable voice for Americans.”
On Wednesday, March 7, 2018, alongside the Honorable Attorney, David McCallister, and Lt. Commander Phil Walters of the Judah P. Benjamin Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, we would attend and speak before the Board of County Commissioners in downtown Tampa where the same Commissioner (Les Miller) was successful in bringing in the domestic terrorist of Black Lives Matter and Antifa to the city, who so scared members of the Commission into changing their 4-3 vote not to remove the Confederate soldiers monument from the county grounds would, on this day, ask the staff to draft a proposed ordinance banning assault weapon sales in Hillsborough County, a move illegal under state law. The motion to do so failed for a lack of a second.
I could not have been more proud of Mr. McCallister and Mr. Walters for their presentations to the commission that, in this correspondence, is not enough page space to go into detail.
Later on this very evening, we would attend the Hillsborough County Diversity Advisory Council meeting that Mr. McCallister is not only a member of, but also chairs the committee who performed the task of rebranding the council.
The chair of the council, Mr. Perry, made it clear to all in attendance that the rebranding process was to make sure that the council was inclusive to all the citizens, and would address the issues they brought before the council.
Shortly after the public comment section of the meeting, commission member Edelyn Verona, the Caribbean representative, made it perfectly clear that this inclusion was not for anyone who championed the Confederate charge, or who opposed the removal of Confederate soldier monuments, or their colors.
The real bigotry continued when the Black lesbian and gay community representative said that she would not talk to, or attend any Sons, or Daughters of the Confederacy meetings, or hear any issue they brought before the council. The strategic plan of inclusion did not include any issue coming from these 501-c (3) Heritage organizations or from any citizen who, too, championed their cause.
Mr. McCallister would be verbally attacked by the Caribbean representative for bringing myself and other Confederate supporters, even though I spoke about the destruction of the Second Amendment, and the mental illness of those who have been able to obtain weapons to commit serious crimes like Dylan Roof, and the many who have followed since his deranged act in Charleston, and the lack of decent parenting.
After the meeting, I would express my disappointment to Mr. Perry and the government official in attendance. Content discrimination and exclusion was the order of the evening, not the inclusion that Mr. Perry presented as the focal point of this council’s strategic plan.
On Thursday evening, March 8, 2018, alongside several of my babies, their fathers, mothers and a host of others, over the overpass of Interstate 4 and Hwy. 301 in Tampa, to the delight of thousands who passed by, we would post the colors of the Confederacy. God bless you!
Your brother,
HK
Member, Save Southern Heritage Florida
