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An Open Letter & Open Report / Jacksonville / The Hunley Awards Ceremonies King & Alonso High Schools
MARCH 31, 2018
Jacksonville / The Hunley Awards Ceremonies King & Alonso High Schools
Dear Ms. Lunelle,
I cannot thank Mr. Henry Russ enough for engaging several young black men in historical dialogue that undoubtedly changed the perceived dislike they were having about my presence and the large battle flag made for me by Ms. Caudel of Easley, South Carolina.
None of them had ever heard about the Corwin Amendment, or even about the 12 year period of so called “Reconstruction” that nearly pushed asunder the love and trust garnered between a man called master and a man he called family and friend. Or the organizations like the Pole Bearers and the Knights Monumental Association that sprang up advocating that black folks do all they could to regain and retain the loving relations and relationships they had gained with their Southern white families, and to never allow themselves to be duped and used against them again by the likes of carpetbaggers, Southern scalawags and paid off blacks who climbed into bed with them for their own personal ill-gotten gains, much like what the NAACP, aided by the traitorous Southern Poverty Law Center, has done here in the 21st century.
Later that night, Mr. Russ and I would attend the Jacksonville City Council meeting. The most disturbing rhetoric for me came first from a man who appeared to be Spanish and later from two white women wearing “take them down” shirts.
The Spanish man’s diatribe was bad enough, but then these two white women ranted about how demeaning the Confederate soldiers monument was for the black folks, and how the evil Southern white people of the South were solely responsible for his downtrodden plight and, furthermore, how I and the other speakers were cherishing these Jim Crow monuments that were built to revere this evil.
If I had not already heard this excrement taken from the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s website that published an entire web page verbatim on just what these scalawags had just said, I probably would have puked all over the chamber floor! Instead, I would wait my turn to address the Council. I might add that I was so proud of Mr. Russ and the other men who would repudiate the lies and distorted rhetoric of these aforementioned scalawags.
I would tell this council that after the massacre of those nine black folks in the church that had been given to them by the Christian white folks of South Carolina, the Northern Press would descend upon the Capitol in Columbia, one attacking the Cenotaph of the soldiers, decrying that every flag in the state was at half mast, except that evil rebel flag, and the racist Sons of Confederate Veterans and UDC who owned the monument didn’t have the decency to make it so.
It took a child to tell them that neither the Sons or Daughters could touch the flag, only the Governor, Legislature, or perhaps the black woman who got rich because she climbed and removed it illegally. The fake news media, still determined to exact their sensational lie, then photoshopped a picture of Roof with the Southern Cross in one hand and the supposed pistol he used in committing this insane act, proclaiming that the Southern Cross was somehow responsible.
I would tell them had Roof gone to the Sons’ website, he would have been made privy to the forty plus Africans who rode with the Honorable General Nathan Bedford Forrest, and of whom he proclaimed that they stayed with him until the end of the war, and that no better Confederates lived than they. I would tell them of Rev. Mack Lee, a body servant of the Honorable General Robert E. Lee, who educated himself off the funds given him by the General. Rev. Mack started the first credit union in America to help his people and started churches in both the North and South, and told his people to get themselves educated, buy some land, keep their faith in the Almighty God, and beyond all else, only trust the Southern white man.
In the middle of my three minute dissertation, I would be interrupted by a staff member speaking in an open mike to a council member, forcing me to lose my train of thought. The three minute bell would go off, and the Council President would refuse to give me the lost time back. A black council member, Reginald Brown, began questioning me about when was I President of the NAACP, was I still a member, when did I come to Jacksonville and, for some reason, chided me about the difference on how the council of Jacksonville did business differently than in my hometown of Asheville, N.C. I didn’t see the revelation of any of his questions. I’m glad that my council in Asheville isn’t as disrespectful as this one is.
