Pro-Confederacy speaker dropped from grant request
August 11, 2011
The Associated Press
Herald-Dispatch.comCHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — The state will give matching funds to a Civil War event in Cabell County after organizers dropped a pro-Confederacy speaker from their grant request.
The Charleston Gazette reports that the state Sesquicentennial Commission approved $1,715 for Guyandotte Civil War Days on Wednesday. The annual festival re-enacts an 1861 raid by Confederate soldiers.
Festival organizers had originally requested funds for keynote speaker H.K. Edgerton. He’s a black writer who maintains that numerous slaves fought alongside their masters in the war.
Education and Arts Secretary Kay Goodwin, the commission’s chairwoman, says the festival’s revised application doesn’t mention Edgerton.
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