Here is one man's explanation.
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA
ATLANTA DIVISION
JAMES ANDREW COLEMAN Plaintiff,
v.
ZELL MILLER,GOVERNOR OF
THE STATE OF GEORGIA
and
THE STATE OF GEORGIA, Defendants.
CIVIL ACTION FILE
NO. 1:94 - CV -1673 - ODE
Personally appeared before the undersigned officer, duly authorized by law to administer oaths, STAFF SGT. EDDIE BROWN PAGE, III, and states the following:
My name is Eddie Brown Page, III. I have personal knowledge of the matters addressed in this Affidavit. I am over the age of majority and am suffering for no legal disabilities.
I make this affidavit for use in the above-styled case and for any other lawful and proper use of this Court.
I am a native Atlantan and Georgian. I am an African-American and a patriotic Southerner. I am a graduate of from Georgia State University. I also attended Clark-Atlanta University, graduated from Atlanta Metropolitan Collge, Atlanta Area Technical School and Joseph E. Brown High School in Atlanta. I am currently a full-time student again at Atlanta Area Technical School and serve on the student government as Representative of Automotive Technology Program and President of the Vocational Industrial Club of America (VICA) chapter; I am also the post-secondary State of Georgia Historian of VICA for all Georgia post-secondary schools and technical colleges, for the 1994-95 term. I am a free-lance professional musician of Local 148-462 of the American Federation of Musicians, Atlanta Federation of Musicians Chapter. I am also a music teacher at the Gate City Heritage Preparatory School, teaching grades 1-4. I work as a cashier-clerk at the West End Newsstand. I am a soldier with the 116th Army Band of the Georgia National Guard. My rank is Staff Sergeant. My duties are double-reed section leader and unit career counselor. I am an honor graduate of basic combat training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina - squad leader of the cycle. I am also a graduate of Georgia Military Institute, honor graduate, basic Non-Commissioned Officer course; graduate of the basic retention NCO course, Camp Robinson, Arkansas; graduate of the NCO battle skills course at Camp Robinson, Arkansas; graduate of the senior ROTC advanced camp, Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
The lineage of my current service unit (the 116th Army Band of the Georgia National Guard) dates back to 1862, under Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy and Joseph E. Brown, Governor of Georgia. Based on my own study of my unit's history, a significant number of African-Americans served in the Confederate militias as musicians, as I do presently in the Guard, and they were decreed by the Confederate Congress to receive the same pay as Whites; musicians in the Union Army received unequal pay.
As a native Georgian, I was born under the "1879" Georgia memorial flag, based on the Confederate Stars and Bars, but enlisted under and have continuously served under the 1956 Georgia flag with the cross of St. Andrew, also known as the Confederate battle flag. I am a distinguished graduate and alumnus of Joseph Emerson Brown High School of Atlanta, Georgia, named after a Governor of Georgia during the War Between the States who later became Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court and U. S. Senator from GEorgia (Governor Brown was also the first president of the Atlanta Board of Education and champion of public education as an alumni of the University of Georgia). The "nickname" and "mascot" of Brown High School was the "Rebels." Its colors were Confederate gray and infantry royal blue, dedicated as a living memorial to the Confederacy, like our current Georgia flag. As a member of the Brown High Rebel Band, I wore an authentic reproduction of the uniform worn by my African-American forefathers who served in that capacity during the War Between the States. "Dixie" was the school song (this song was made famous by Ohioan Dan Emmett and composed by two Black minstrels, the Snowden brothers, who taught the song to Emmett). The school flag was the Confederate battle flag. As an eighth grader at Brown High School, I was taunted by one White schoolmate who told me to "put that flag down" because it was a "white man's symbol," and that it didn't belong to me and for me to "get my own" symbol. As a result, I embarked upon the study of my African-American Southern heritage and my forefathers' contributions to the Confederate States of America.
My many years of study on this subject show that Blacks made significant contributions to the Confederate war effort as free people of color and as slaves. I found out that while President Abraham Lincoln was resolute in refusing to use Blacks as soldiers, the Confederate States from the beginning used African-Americans for all army chores and even as fighting men. Black men furnished most of the cooks, mess attendants, teamsters, stablemen, builders of fortifications, brake-men, baggagemen, track layers and porters, and were also musicians and combatants or bodyguards. Black women served as nurses in the Confederate military services.
For me, as a native of the South and as a soldier, the St. Andrew's cross on the Georgia flag symbolizes my heritage - respect for the courage and sacrifice of my patriotic forefathers, free people of color and slaves, for the constitutional principle of sovereignty of the states of the founding fathers - and not racism, current events or the institution of "slavery." For me, the Confederate symbolism of the current state flag should be understood as representing and acknowledging the contributions of African Americans, Native Americans and Jewish persons, as well as European Americans, that is, a multicultural heritage. To do so would strip the Confederate symbolism of its racial potency and would underscore our common heritage. I directly rebut those who see in the St. Andrews Cross a symbol of white supremacy, segregation and "state's rights".
FURTHER, AFFIANT SAYETH NOT.
/s/ Eddie Brown Page, III GAARNG
EDDIE BROWN PAGE, III
Sworn to and subscribed before
me this 15th day of December 1994.
/s/ Sandra C. Hembree
Notary Public
My Commission Expires:
/stamp/
Notary Public, Douglas County, Georgia
My Commission Expires March 24, (unreadable, appears to be 1996 or 1998)