W.Va. panel delays funding for Civil War event
May 25, 2011
The Associated Press
Herald-Dispatch.comCHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A state panel has delayed funding a Civil War festival that’s invited a pro-Confederacy writer to speak.
The Charleston Gazette reports the West Virginia Sesquicentennial Commission awarded $11,160 in grants to four other programs Tuesday. The action was the commission’s first since four of its eight members quit to protest funding for tourist-oriented events instead of education.
The commission tabled a request for more than $2,500 from the Guyandotte Civil War Days festival, which annually re-enacts an 1861 raid by Confederate soldiers.
Commissioners say they’re concerned about keynote speaker H.K. Edgerton. He’s a black writer and lecturer who maintains that numerous slaves fought alongside their masters in the war.
Davis & Elkins College dean Victor Thacker says the last thing historians should do is provide more bad history to students.
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