H.K. Edgerton former president of the Asheville NAACP
"If you want to ask me about my ancestral roots, I am a Confederate-American," Mr. Edgerton said. "I was born colored, negro, then one day somebody decided to make me African-American. Nobody asked me about that. Africa didn't want me then, and she certainly doesn't want me now."
"The attack on the Confederacy doesn't get the attention it deserves. These blacks today have no idea what took place back then. (Blacks) earned a place of dignity in that war. If it wasn't for Africans that war would have lasted four days, not four years. We made all of the implements of war, we fought, we participated -- not one slave insurrection happened during that period of time. They did not have whips and guns forcing them to be there. God and his infinite wisdom brought these people here. He brought about a love between master and slave that has never happened before. If you search this empirically then you will know the only one who cared about the African was the man in the south. But we don't want to face that."
Edgerton considers his crusade a “fight for civil rights” and says, “I’ve
fought for civil rights all my life and it doesn’t get any worse than this.
It’s high time to have education for black and white folks about Southern
history.”
Edgerton’s knowledge of the Civil War era differs greatly from what the usual
textbooks, which he calls northern propaganda, teach.
Edgerton instructs that secession was an act provided for in the U.S.
Constitution. No state had ever agreed to enter into a perpetual Union when
it ratified the Constitution, and the South was not the first to discuss the idea.
According to Edgerton, the New England states talked about secession during
the War of 1812, and in 1814 the New England Federalists even held a secession
convention in Connecticut.
Here are a few other insights Edgerton presented about the Civil War:
“Blacks fought for the South.”
“Lincoln fought the South to keep all the Southern tax money.”
"And as for President Lincoln, our American hero, who signed the Emancipation Proclamation. In march of 1861 Abraham Lincoln called all those black leaders in his office and he told them -- Even if I set you free you'll be inferior. You need to get out of the country because I will colonize you. Lincoln proposed the 13th Amendment, being the only President ever to do so. That amendment said Congress would never have the power to interrupt an institution of state. He told the southerners they could keep the slaves if they paid the North a 42% tariff. The South agreed to a 10% tariff but not 42%. So, who I am supposed to blame the institution of slavery on?
“Southern generals have been made out to be traitors when they were very
honorable men.”
“Blacks could certainly walk around the south, but not around Lincoln’s
Illinois.”
“America will never ever be great until the truth (about the Civil War) is
told.”
“The only thing Lincoln did was to pit black and white against each other”
"The Constitution is what started the Civil War - taxes and states’ rights -
not slavery.”
“Many blacks were free and they even owned slaves.” (This was documented in
an Asheville Tribune article about the 1800s Sulfur Spring Resort in West
Asheville.)
“Most white folks didn’t even own slaves.”
“The first legalized slave was owned by a black man.”
According to Edgerton, the greatest Union desertion rates occurred just after
Lincoln announced his Emancipation Proclamation. Edgerton asserted, “Union
Soldiers said they didn’t get into to this war to save the ******s.”
He believes the United States did a great disservice to the South after the
war. Edgerton points out, “We (the United States) rebuilt Germany and Japan
(after World War II), but we never rebuilt the south land. We need a
Marshall plan for the South and we need it now.” “If you want to understand
today’s race problems, you have to understand what went on during the
‘reconstruction.’ Anyone who knows nothing of that era is simply ignorant.”
Edgerton has his own ideas about reparations too.
“The idea of reparations (for slavery) is a joke. It’s a way to drive a
wedge between blacks and whites. The only hope they (the blacks) have is to
hold their white southern brothers’ hand and join in calling for Southern
reparations,” explains Edgerton.
“My ultimate goal is to seek reparations for all Southerners.” Edgerton is not
just talking about money either, but the South’s history that Edgerton says
has been rewritten by the victors - the North.
Edgerton talked about some of his exploits and told of when he was standing
on a bridge in Alabama with his Confederate Flag. He said a black woman
stopped, jumped out of a car, hugged his neck and told him that she could
now bring her grandfather’s uniform down out of the attic. It was a
Confederate uniform.
He notes that when his zeal was put to work in the black community, he was
called “a radical, loose cannon,” yet when he turned his attention to
defending his Southern heritage he is called a “lackey and Uncle Tom.”
“It’s ridiculous that a Nazi, Ku Klux Klan skinhead would use the Cross of
St. Andrew to try and intimidate anyone. That’s my flag,” states Edgerton.
Edgerton says that in the Southern heritage circles he’s been affiliated
with, “I’ve not run into one person who believes slavery was a good thing.”
When it comes to defending Southern Hertiage, Edgerton admits “Southerners
always will try to accommodate people because we are kind-hearted, but we’ve
backed up too far,” he says.
Edgerton, who says he’s been made a member of the “White Trash Society,”
says with a laugh, “It’s hard to be a white man 'cause we’re guilty of
everything bad that happened.”
