Posted on 11/13/2002 11:14:51 AM PST by stainlessbanner
BILOXI - A group of Confederate re-enactors plans to demonstrate against the Ku Klux Klan if the Klan marches through Biloxi on Nov. 30.
Michael D. Kelley, colonel of the 37th Texas Cavalry re-enactors, said Confederate organizations should take a stand against racist groups using Confederate symbols. The re-enactors plan to hold signs opposing the KKK and furl their flags at the approach of any white-robed Klansmen.
"When the Klan comes around, we will turn our backs and drop our flags to show our disapproval," Kelley said.
The KKK has received a permit to march along city sidewalks, but Kelley's group has not. Kelley, who lives in Pascagoula, said he plans to contact city officials to see if his group is required to obtain a permit.
Kelley said he does not consider the KKK to be a Southern organization.
Jeff Davis of Gainesville, Ga., who said he is a "collateral descendant" of the only president of the Confederate States of America, plans to participate in the counterdemonstration. Davis said his great-great-grandfather was Jefferson Davis's first cousin.
"I have been more and more concerned that the symbols of the Confederacy and our ancestors are being totally annihilated by people such as the KKK," Davis said. "When I was notified they were going to be rallying and marching in Biloxi, which is kind of a hallowed place for Jefferson Davis, I said it's time for us to draw a line in the sand and take back our symbols - not in a belligerent way, but in a very civil way - from besmirching the names of our ancestors and to separate the true descendants from the Confederacy from this bunch of rabble-rousers and racists."
Davis is commander of the President Jefferson Davis Chapter of the Military Order of the Stars and Bars and a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, 27th Georgia Regiment, he said.
But John French, a spokesman for the local regiment of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said its members will sit out any counterdemonstration.
"Regardless of what your signs say, you're part of the problem," French said. "You lend credence to those things. The best way to keep people like (the Klan) away is to ignore them."
LOL - you bastard you. ;-)
I suppose you're referring to the PROPAGANDA that the Radical Republicans spread about the capture of Davis. According to trash like War Sec. Edwin McMasters Stanton, Davis was captured in women's clothing. The truth, however, is markedly different. Davis, a very ill man in the final days of the Confederacy, had only a shawl around his shoulders--put there by his cavalry escort to ward off impending pneumonia!
Who was it that said, "this is a government of white men, for white men."
That fits with the KKK in the '20s and 30's.
And now for something completely different.
Does anyone remember a series called "The Divided Union" narrated by George Peppard?
Walt
No, I am referring to recent reports credited to Varina Davis that she through the shawl over J.D.
I've no doubt that Davis was personally brave and forthright -- just totally unsuited to lead a revolution.
Walt
Thanks. I couldn't see the middle.
BTW, I saw a (History channel?) documentary about the KKK control of the Indiana state govt. Interesting.
You know that you now owe billbears a royalty fee on that.
He claimed it as his new catch phrase!
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