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An Open Letter & Open Report / Keynote Address to the Georgia Division of the Order of Confederate Rose / Arlene Barnum
June 13, 2018: Keynote Address to the Georgia Division of the Order of Confederate Rose / Arlene Barnum
Dear Ms. Lunelle,
On Friday, June 8, 2018, I would arrive in Macon, Georgia for the joint Georgia Sons of Confederate Veterans and their official auxiliary , the Georgia Division of the Order of the Confederate Rose Annual Reunion/Convention. I had been asked to deliver the keynote address for the Rose on Saturday, June 9, 2018.
HK entering meeting room in Macon, GA
From the minute that I arrived on Friday, it was clear that this event for me was more of a reunion and a love fest for myself. So many of the individuals present had made their way across the state with my brother and I on the Historic March Across Dixie, which would see us marching some twenty miles a day, six days a week to the state capitol in Austin, Texas.
The irony for me is that in this Georgia town, I had come to talk to these ladies (and their “Thorns”) about the herculean efforts of the brave Southern women to memorialize our fallen dead, and was now forced, by circumstance, to talk about the attacks now being perpetrated against her efforts by a nefarious few, meant to disgrace and weaponize not only the Cenotaphs but also the heroic ladies that erected them.
Ladies dedicating
And to include the memory of the heroes they represent as a part of the disgrace, utilizing the momentum they gained when Nikki Haley, then Governor of South Carolina, succumbed to the pressure of domestic terrorists and a media photoshopped picture to legitimize the disgraceful act of removing the Southern Cross from its place of honor on the soldiers monument, breaking the promise given by the State Legislature that it would never be removed again.
Sadly, I would have to report the activities of far too many young Southern women have succumbed and joined forces with those who use only historical inaccuracies, but also vicious lies, sadly back stabbing of leadership within our own Southern ranks to further this sacrilege.
And, I must offer a word of apology to you for asking that you inquire of Ms. Arlene Barnum, if she too has become one of those back stabbers, because as you know that at every turn I have tried to put her in favorable light whenever I speak about the Honorable Anthony Hervey, the young black man in the car with her when he lost his life after leaving a rally in support of not removing a Cenotaph in Birmingham, Alabama. Even to the point of trying to downplay rumors that she might have been responsible for that car running off the road, or that she was a plant for the other side.
Her response to the question of becoming a poster child for Rawls in St. Augustine was the straw that broke the camels back for me. I never believed that she would turn on you for asking. I would have asked myself, but I don’t really know her. I was on the podium with her and Anthony on the day of his death, and spoke to her once since that day on a conference call with her and a young man from Jacksonville, Florida, but was not pleased by the content of the conversation.
I, again, express sorry for any inconvenience, or any-ill will expressed towards you for asking on my behalf and requests in these matters.
And, not to forget, thanks to Dixie Outfitters and the Honorable General Paul McClaren of Olive Branch, Mississippi in making my visit to Macon a success. And, not to forget the Rose of Georgia who appointed me a “Georgia Thorn!”
And, I am truly heartbroken not to have raised the funds to travel to DeFuniak Springs, Florida to help my Southern family where the first Cenotaph in the great state of Florida to the integrated military of the South was placed. God bless you!
Your brother,
HK
Member, Save Southern Heritage Florida
