Posted on 07/04/2005 8:34:24 PM PDT by stainlessbanner
Maryville, Blount County (WVLT) - No matter where you go across the south, almost everybody's got an opinion on the rebel flag.
If you remember earlier this month, the Maryville School Board banned the flag from any school related function, but an African American man well known to civil rights issues says that's not right and he's taking his protest to the roadways.
Blount County Bureau Chief Stephen McLamb caught up with him on Thursday.
The Maryville School Board this month banned flying the Confederate flag amid racial tensions but that hasn't stopped H. K. Edgerton, a former NAACP leader, from marching into Maryville with his and he questions what racial tensions?
"Just because you can go get one or two poverty pimps to strut around and try to change people in another direction and try to make you believe all black folks hate the flag, that's not true,” says H. K. Edgerton, North Carolina Heritage Preservation President.
The public display grabbed local attention.
"I noticed a black man walking down Alcoa Highway carrying a carrying a Rebel flag...never seen anything like that in my life,” says Bob Culbertson, who supports the rebel flag at MHS.
And local support in the form of honking horns, hoots and hollers.
"The Rebel flag has always been a big part of the south, they ought to keep it there,” adds Culbertson.
"I think they ought to fly it high and fly it proud,” Says Michael Raines, who also supports flying flag at MHS.
Edgerton calls the board a bunch of scalawags and says it's time for the silent majority to speak out.
"There's a line that gets drawn in the sand. And let me tell you something. It doesn't get drawn any better than what's being done right here in Maryville, Tennessee,” says Edgerton.
The southern heritage activist says blacks and whites in Blount County are family.
Edgerton says by the school board banning the use of the Confederate flag, it not only takes away the students' First Amendment rights but also takes away their heritage.
"And I would love more than anything else to come back to Maryville and see black folks and white folks at Maryville High School football games and all over Blount County flying their flag...the flag of their ancestors,” says Edgerton.
Edgerton says he plans to resume his march to the courthouse in Maryville in the morning where he plans a news conference.
Good. Words.
HK on the move!
I hope he walks right past Wlat's house.
Kweesee history bump...
I wish I could march with him!! I think many of us do... God bless him!! Yes, it's about heritage and not hate. We love HK!
He might want to be careful. Does he know what happened to Martin Luther King when he started talking about a colorblind society and freedom and heritage?
Edgerton is an anomaly!
Sure,one can admire his courage and iconoclasm but please,people,he NO WAY represents anything close to black sentiments on this issue.
Every black person I have ever known,in a school,work,or social setting,has never had anything but scorn for that Confederate Flag.
And thats North and South,liberal and conservative,young and old.
That doesn't mean they are RIGHT.I think many of the white,pro-flag folks are motivated by true love of heritage,not racist hate mongering.I'll take their word on that even though it still makes ME,a Northern bred white guy,uncomfortable.
Yet to pass Edgerton off as someone who represents some below the radar mass of black flag supporters is completely ludicrous.
So......I guess the strategy should be to perpetuate the leftist PC view of this?
Mr. Edgerton is NOT an anomaly if you actually follow SCV/UDC and Southern cultural events. You might be surprised, but if you just follow the MSM, you're not getting the entire story.
There's a lot folks who hate Old Glory, too but I don't hang around them.
Then you have never met any of the 40% of Mississippi black voters who voted to keep the Confederate Battle Banner on the state flag of Mississippi a few years ago.
And just how many black people do you really know? Far less than the number who support the flying of the Confederate flag I'll bet.
"The Rebel flag has always been a big part of the south, they ought to keep it there"
An indictment of public education. The flag has no more historical business flying over Blount Country than it does over Boston Massachusetts. As we discussed on the other thread, Blount County was strongly pro-Union during the war. The county voted by over four to one to stay in the Union.
If they want to embrace their heritage and honor their Unionist forefathers, they should choose another symbol than the flag that their ancestors were so opposed to.
Oh, Lordy! Call an ambulance! There's going to be an apoplexy explosion!
Tell the EMS guys to wear latex gloves....and DON'T tell them they're going to fetch an apoplectic scalawag!
And as someone may have failed to point out to you, the people in Blount County were bound by that vote to secede with the majority of their fellow-citizens, who in the whole, acting as their State, were the sovereign power and were authorized to take the step of secession, and to bind everyone in the State to the will of the whole People thereof.
What a silly statement! What sort of basis of comparison is that? Every person only knows a limited number of people -- what is your point?
he is just one of the million or so black CSA descendants, who has re-discovered their Confederate HERITAGE. (over 100,000 brave, black southerners volunteered & fought VALIANTLY for a FREE dixie republic. to quote Nate Forrest, "better rebels never drew breath!")
every day that passes, more and more black southerners cleave to the Cross of St Andrew & become SOUTHRON, which is quite different than being a southerner.
MANY black, loyal, southron patriots are joining the SCV & UDC. (i wish that EVERY one of them would!)
free dixie,sw
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