Posted on 10/27/2002 5:22:25 PM PST by stainlessbanner
CANTON, Ga.(AP) - H.K. Edgerton is a proud black Southerner who has no grievance with the Confederate battle flag.
And he's willing to march 1,500 miles across the South from Asheville, N.C., to Austin, Texas, decked out in a gray Civil War uniform and waving the Rebel flag to bring attention to the flag issue.
Edgerton sees the banner as a symbol of Southern heritage shared by blacks and whites rather than one of racial division.
"We were family," said Edgerton. He was in the Canton, north of Atlanta, on Saturday to visit Cherokee High School before marching west to Montgomery, Ala., on Monday.
In September, school administrators banned its overwhelming white student body from wearing to class anything depicting the Confederate battle flag.
Edgerton's "March Across Dixie" began earlier this month in Asheville, where he was a former president of the local NAACP. He's also a board member of the Southern Legal Resource Center, a nonprofit group that provides legal support to people fighting efforts to remove symbols of the Confederacy.
Edgerton blamed Northern reconstructionists for pitting blacks and whites against each other after the Civil War.
"This is Dr. Martin Luther King's dream, that we would all sit down at the same table together," he said.
But some Canton residents disagreed with Edgerton.
"He's an outsider from another state who doesn't know what he's talking about," said Krystal Thomas, a 1999 graduate of Cherokee High, where administrators in September banned students from wearing anything depicting the emblem.
"It's not the flag itself but the attitudes of the people who were wearing them," Thomas said.
Michael Julian Bond, duty director of the Atlanta NAACP, had stronger words about Edgerton's view.
"Nobody can argue with the fact we want racial harmony," Bond said in Sunday's editions of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "but for anyone to think that the Confederate flag is a unifying symbol must be utterly mad."
Edgerton hopes to reach Austin by mid-February. He'll ask officials there to put back plaques honoring Texas Confederate veterans . The plaques were removed from the lobby of the Texas Supreme Court in 2000.
Sir,,,you are correct and some of us never will.
"BUCKEY", where i grew up down south was considered derogatory/RACIST term for a person in poverty of the black race/ethnic group.
is THAT what you intended?
may i gently suggest that you apologise to all the BLACK members of FR? and to PPM for being a liar/welcher/cheat/creep/fool.
free dixie,sw
You are totally full of crap.
being caught looking EVEN MORE stupid/ignorant and hateful/hatefilled than USUAL must REALLY gall you!
free dixie,sw
imVho, you are below contempt.
free dixie,sw
Deportation was your hero, Abraham Lincoln's idea.... He wanted to deport Blacks to Africa.
I am sorry if historical facts intefere with your racist, political agenda.
Facts are facts
For Southern Independence
Larry Salley
That would be the same Virginia whose Constitution adopted in 1861 contained the clause, "Slaves hereafter emancipated shall forfeit their freedom by remaining in the Commonwealth more than twelve months after they become actually free, and it shall be the duty of the General Assembly to prescribe proper regulations for reducing such negroes to slavery."
I suppose Mr. Edgerton should have marched through Connecticut, Ohio, Illinios, Indiana and Oregon instead.
Oregon
"In June 1844, exclusionary laws were adopted in the Oregon territory that made it illegal for people of African descent to live in this part of the country. Those blacks who were here often maintained a low profile, and those whites with racist leanings ensured that they did.
Additional laws passed later restricted blacks from holding real estate, making contracts and marrying whites."
Colony of Connecticut. May 13, 1708
"This Black Code states that no slave could be acquired without the owner's knowlege (presumably in reference to run-away slaves) and that if a negro or mulatto servant disburb the peace or strike a white person, he shall be whipped. It seems that at the beginning of the eighteenth century Black slaves knew limits to the abuse they would endure and acted accordingly. It would be wrong to assume that slaves were either docile or passive, and in making the slave an object of legislation, he could thereby also become its subject.
Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio , That from and after the first day of June next. no black or mulatto person shall be permitted to settle or reside in this state, unless he or she shall first produce a fair certificate from some court within the United States, of his or her actual freedom, which certificate shall be attested by the clerk of said court, and the seal thereof annexed thereto, by said clerk.
"Black Codes "Colonial America" 1619 - 1776
All of colonial America was a slave society, and as such it took measures to minimize the threat of slave uprisings by keeping slaves subservient. To that end, by the early 1700s each colony had enacted laws- later referred to as Black Codes- that not only regulated the conditions of black slaves but also restricted the rights of free blacks. The middle of the 18th century found slavery to be firmly established, both physically and legally, in the American colonies.
Illinois
For the better part of Illinois' antebellum history, free blacks were only allowed to enter the state after posting a $1000 bond. In 1848, Illinois changed its constitution to absolutely prohibit the entrance of free blacks. In 1853, Illinois enacted legislation to enforce the ban
Indiana
Indiana's Constitution barred free blacks from owning property or entering contracts with wording almost identical to that contained in the Oregon Constitution.
Ohio
Ohio law called for the expulsion of all free negroes.
Far before Lincoln appeared on the Presidential radar screen men like John Breckenridge were supporting emigration of free blacks to Africa. Robert Lee actually paid passage for several of his former slaves to Liberia in the 1850's. In the 1840's the legislature of Alabama seriously debated a proposed law that would deport all free blacks in the state to Africa and bill the county that they were found in for the passage. I guess that would make John Breckenridge, Robert Lee and much of the Alabama legislature racists as well, wouldn't it?
I'e never suggested that Mr. Edgerton should march through Connecticut, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, or Oregon. But if Mr. Edgerton would have no reason to march through Connecticut, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, or Oregon because of the laws that you complain about, then why would he want to march through North Carolina, Georigia, Florida, Mississppi or Alabama? In support of laws like these?
1723 Virgina Anti-Assembly Law Impeded blacks from meeting
1723 Virgina Weapons Law Forbade blacks from keepimg weapons
1740 South Carlina Consolidated Forbade slaves Slave Act from raising or owning farm animals
1775 Virgina Runaway Law Allowed sale or execution of slaves attempting to flee
1775 North Carolina Forbade freeing Manumission Law slaves except for meritorious service
1783 Virginia Migration Law Forbade free African-Americans from entering the state.
1806 Louisiana Migration Law Forbade immigration for free African-Americans males over 15 years old
1811 Kentucky Conspiracy Law Made conspiracy among slaves a capital offense
1813 Virginia Poll Tax Exacted a $1.50 tax on African-Americans who were forbidden to vote.
1814 Louisiana Migration Law Prohibited free African-Americans from entering state
1815 Virginia Poll Tax Required free African-Americans to pay tax so whites could vote
1816 Louisiana Jury Law Provided that no African-American could testify against a white person.
1820 South Carolina Migration Law Prohibited free African-Americans from entering the State
1826 North Carolina Migration Law Forbade entry of free African-Americans; violators penalized $500.00
1827 Florida Voting Law Restricted voting to whites
1829 Georgia Literacy Law Provided fine and imprisonment for teaching am African-American to read
1830 Louisiana Expulsion Law Required all free African-Americans to leave the state within 60 days
1830 Mississippi Employment Law Forbade African-Americans employment in printing and enterainment
1831 North Carolina License Law Required all African-Americans traders and peddlers to be licensed
1831 South Carolina enacted Free African-Americans Licensing Prohibition were denied any kind of a business license.
1831 Mississippi Preaching Law Forbade free African-Americans to preach except with permission
1832 Alabama and Virginia Fined and flogged Literacy Laws whites for teaching African-Americans to read or write
1833 Georgia Employment Law Prohibited African-Americans from working in reading or writing jobs
1833 Georgia Literacy Law Provided fines and whippings for teaching African-Americans
1835 Missouri Registration Law Required the registration and bonding of all free African-American
1835 Georgia Employment Law Prohibited employing African-Americans in drug stores
1837 South Carolina Curfew Law Required African-Americans to be of the sreets by a certain hour
1838 Virginia School of Law Forbade African-Americans who had gone North to school return.
1838 North Carolina Marriage Law Declared void all interracial marriages to 3rd generation
1841 South Carolina Observing Law Forbade African-Americans and whites from looking out the same windows
1844 South Carolina Amusement Law Prohibited African-Americans from playing games with whites
1845 Georgia Contracting Law Prohibited contracts with African-American mechanics
1848 Virginia Incitement Law Provided death penalty for advising African-Americans to rebel
1852 Georgia Tax Law Imposed annual $5.00 per capita tax on all free African-Americans
1853 Virginia Poll Tax Law Levied tax on all free African-Americans
So is Mr. Edgerton marching in support of these laws or against them?
I didn't complain about the laws, you did. That was over 140 years ago. I can't change them. You can't change them. Mr. Edgerton can't change them. So what's your point?
That Mr. Edgerton seems to be very selective about what heritage he is celebrating and what he is ignoring.
You mean that he is Southern and is marching across the SOUTH? You still have not stated your point.
As I expressed to you earlier, he could have marched across yankee states which had enacted the same laws as you complain about. So maybe its not about those laws. Maybe its not even about slavery. Maybe it was never about slavery. Maybe it is, instead, something about which you will never understand. And without your making a valid point, the world will never know.
Try me.
Read the book "When In The Course of Human Events" by Charles Adams.
I've read it and I was underwhelmed to say the least. Try again.
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