Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Reply to Edward Ayers, head of the American Civil War Museum in reply to his letter that they are going through with their plans to lease the Museum of the Confederacy to the Sons of Confederate Veterans

Letter sent to Edward Ayers, head of the American Civil War Museum which includes the Museum of the Confederacy in reply to his letter saying they were going to continue with the plans to lease the Museum of the Confederacy to the Sons of Confederate Veterans. 


Edward Ayers
Chairman Board of Directors
American Civil War Museum
490 Tredegar St.
Richmond, VA 23219

Dear Dr. Ayers:

I have read your letter of June 18, 2015. It certainly demonstrates your skill in public relations but otherwise it is appalling.

Does it not occur to you what might happen when the Sons of Confederate Veterans praises, promotes and sells Sons of Confederate Veteran member Frank Conner’s book The South Under Siege that says:

Look well at the Northern Jewish intellectuals/activists, O South, for they – who by rights should have been your closest friends – are by their own choice your dedicated and deadliest enemy.

A book which argues that African Americans are mentally deficient and that the civil rights movement was a Jewish conspiracy. 

What do you think might possibly happen at a synagogue?

Another book, a pro-slavery book, Myths of American Slavery by Sons of Confederate Veteran member Walter D. Kennedy, who is scheduled to speak at the Sons of Confederate Veterans’ 2015 National Reunion “Heritage” luncheon in Richmond, Virginia is ferocious in his denunciations of the Southern Baptist Churches resolution of 1995 on the issue of slavery.  Kennedy writes:

The passing of the so-called Racial Reconciliation Resolution by the assembled delegates defamed and otherwise slandered the good name of Southern Baptists of the past 150 years. The resolution is nothing more than liberal double-speak for an act of cultural genocide against the South.

This book is sold and praised by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. What do think might possibly happen at a Southern Baptist Church by a person who thinks the Southern Baptist Church is committing “cultural genocide against the South”?

Then there is the idea broadly held in the neo-Confederate movement that the Civil War was really a theological or holy war between an orthodox Christian South and a heretical (liberal) North.  There has already been one shooting at a Unitarian church a denomination which is singled out in neo-Confederate writing.

From the book, Antebellum Slavery: An Orthodox Christian View, by Gary Roper, another book sold by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and praised by the Sons of Confederate Veterans Chaplain Corps:

In American literature classes, many 19th century writers who held the “New England School” convictions are studied. They were mostly anti-Christian Unitarians and Transcendentalists. …  They hated the Christian faith and they hated the South because of our stand for conventional Christianity. [Bold face in the original. Pp. 138-139]

What do you think might happen at a Unitarian church or a church of a liberal denomination by someone thinks “hated the South” and “hated the Christian faith”?

Then there is the article in the Southern Mercury, published by an educational PAC of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in which congressional representative Keith Ellison and the Islamic faith are attacked in response to Ellison’s request to take the oath of office with Thomas Jefferson’s Koran. The article concludes:

Jefferson had been right. The “medium of war” was the only way to put an end to the Muslim problem. Mr. Ellison was right about Jefferson. He was a “visionary” wise enough to read and learn about the enemy from their own Muslim Holy Book. [Ted Sampley, “What Thomas Jefferson Learned from the Q’uran,” Southern Mercury, Vol. 5 No. 2, April 2007, pp. 12-13]

What do you think might happen at a mosque by someone who thinks Muslims are “the enemy”?

What I got in reply from you to my earlier letter of June 12, 2015 is a lot of public relations and in regards to the specific request that you not host, which from your letter it turns out you are leasing the MOC to the Sons of Confederate Veterans this reply.

We believe we should not discriminate among groups or censor their speech while here even as we do not “pander” to any of them.

What a clever response! Somehow enabling the neo-Confederate movement is posed as a free speech issue. You are a private institution, you have rights too, you don’t have to lease to them. I doubt you would host or lease the Museum of the Confederacy the Ku Klux Klan or Stormfront.

This isn’t just any group, it is the Sons of Confederate Veterans and it isn’t just some convention center, the location is the Museum of the Confederacy and their use of this specific location is an act of the American Civil War Museum enabling a pernicious movement.  A movement which is, as I stated in my earlier letter, entirely pernicious to the teaching of American Civil War history.

You do pander to neo-Confederates as I have well documented at Black Commentator in a four-part series. http://www.blackcommentator.com/441/441_museum_confederacy_sebesta_guest_share.html.  You need to stop having the Museum of the Confederacy be a Museum for the Confederacy.

It is the actions of the American Civil War Museum that enables the neo-Confederate movement.

When the next shooting occurs some of the blood will be on your hands and the hands of the American Civil War Museum trustees.




                                                                                    Sincerely Yours,



                                                                                    Edward H. Sebesta




No.
Name
Affiliation
1
Mr. Dennis I. Belcher
McGuire Woods
2
Mr. George C. Freeman III
Universal Corporation
3
Mr. Bruce C. Gottwald Sr.
NewMarket Corporation
4
Mr. Bernard Grisby
The Pines
5
Dr. Monroe E. Harris Sr.
Virginia Oral and Facial Surgery
6
Mr. David C. Johnson Jr
Marketfield Asset Management
7
Mr. Donald E. King
McGuire Woods
8
Mr. William H. Luke
Mead Wesvaco
9
Mr. Robert N. Mayer
Rothschild Foundation
10
Dr. Elisabeth S. Muhlenfield
Retired
11
Mr. Roswell Page III
McGuire Woods
12
Mr. Walter S. Robertson III
Sterne, Agee & Leach Inc
13
Mr. O. Randolph Rollins
Drive-To-Work
14
Mr. S. Buford Scott
Scott & Stringfellow, Inc.
15
Ms. Ruth C. Streeter
CBS News "60 Minutes"
16
Mr. Brandt Surgner
Altria Group, Inc.
17
Mr. Matthew G. Thompson Jr.
CSC Leasing Company
18
Mr. Lacy Ward Jr.
International Civil Rights Center and Museum
19
Mr. Mario M. White
Virginia State University
20
Mr. Samuel B. Witt III
Retired



Friday, June 26, 2015

Presbyterian Voices for Justice take up the issue of Presbyterian churches hosting neo-Confederate groups

It is in their newsletter.

http://www.pv4j.org/network-news/new-network-news-june-2015.pdf

The issue of churches that host neo-Confederate groups is on page 26.

The word is beginning to get out and in this new climate I think that there will be some concern.

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Neo-Confederates doomed. Rush Limbaugh is defending the Confederate flag.

This is the article right here.


http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2015/06/25/see_i_told_you_so_democrats_are_using_the_confederate_flag_to_destroy_the_gop_southern_stronghold_and_the_american_flag_is_next

I am seeing typical neo-Confederate arguments in it. 

The neo-Confederates are doomed when they have a blowhard like Rush Limbaugh representing Confederate "heritage." 

It will be interesting to see if some Republicans decide to switch back to defending the Confederacy. 

This also has tremendous implications for how Tea Party partisans might define themselves as being pro-Confederate.


"Dallas Morning News" article about the Confederate statues in Dallas and about removing them. My effort to remove the Robert E. Lee statue in the early 1990s mentioned and I am quoted.


The story is here. I certainly intend to help out groups there changing names and getting rid of statues.

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/dallas/headlines/20150625-symbols-of-the-confederacy-abound-in-dallas.ece

Kanye West is praised by Ben Jones (Cooter in the Dukes of Hazard) in the Confederate magazine

In the January-February 2015 Confederate Veteran magazine, in the Forward the Colors section devoted to defending all things Confederate Ben Jones (Who played Cooter in the Dukes of Hazzard TV show.) is very pleased with Kanye West and John McWhorter and explains why on page 11 in the magazine.

McWhorter wrote a defense of  Kayne West selling Confederate flag marked clothing the in the New York Times. Ben Jones is so pleased with it. Quoting Ben Jones.

The New York Times has never been a friend to Southern heritage, and its columnists routinely savage anything which is remotely related to the Confederacy. So it was a bit of a surprise when a Times column recently appeared which featured the noted Princeton linguist Dr. John McWhorter taking a very different view from the knee-jerk sloganism of the NAACP and others. [Italics in the original.]

Ben Jones quotes McWhorter:
"If we are really OK with ourselves, we do not require that our environment be perfectly free of any visual evidence historically connected to ills of the past. Beyond a certain point -- and I say we're beyond it -- it's tie to live in the present and look forward." 

Ben Jones then writes.
McWhorter, who is black, writes Kanye West, the entertainer, has the idea that the way to weaken the force of the flag is to take over the symbol. West wears a jacket with the flag on it. He says, "It's my flag. Now what are you going to do about it?" McWhorter says that "is my idea of Black Power." 
I won't comment on the idiot reasons given by John McWhorter or Kanye West. I think they are fairly self-evident. However, it should show that their antics served the agenda of the neo-Confederates.


Neo-Confederacy is coming down, Round up of articles

National Park Service is pulling Confederate flag items from its gift shops. About time. Someone should check that they are pulling all the Confederate flags, not just the Battle flag.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/24/politics/confederate-flag-national-park-service-sales/


Alabama governor has Confederate flag taken down.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/alabama-confederate-flag-removed-capitol-grounds-119370.html

Warner Brothers gets rid of Confederate flag "Dukes of Hazzard" toys.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/confederate-flag-furor/warner-bros-nixes-dukes-hazzard-toys-confederate-flags-n381116

Many retailers are banning the sale of Confederate merchandise: Walmart, Ebay, Amazon, Target, others.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-retailers-confederate-flag-20150623-story.html

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_28369143/amazon-ebay-and-other-retailers-ban-confederate-flag

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102785449


Virginia is getting rid of the Confederate license plate

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/confederate-flag-furor/virginia-stop-offering-confederate-license-plates-n380316

Other states are bound to re-think whether they should have Confederate flag license plates.

U.S. Congressmen Burnie Thompson wants to ban Confederate flags from the U.S. House.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/06/24/bennie-thompson-confederate-flag/29245839/

Even the "New York Times" has gotten with it. "Tearing Down a Confederate Flag is Just a Start."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/opinion/tearing-down-the-confederate-flag-is-just-a-start.html?_r=0


There is so much happening I can't keep up on it.








Black Commentator reruns article on Bill Clinton and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Full of documentation about the UDC

Sorry. These are going to be short posts.

Black Commentator is re-running the article on Bill Clinton's letters of congratulations to the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC).

The article is full of documentation about the UDC and their ways.

Link is:

http://blackcommentator.com/612/612_cover_hillary_clinton_udc_gamble_love_archives.html


It is the cover story for this weeks issue.

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Bill Clinton's letters to the United Daughters of the Confederacy are published in Buzzfeed

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/heres-a-1994-letter-from-president-bill-clinton-to-the-unite#.vsQrNG7bd


I wrote Hillary Clinton on the issues where presidential policies enable neo-Confederates.

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2015/05/questionnaire-for-2016-presidential.html#.VYsum_lVikp

The above is the questionnaire. So far I have written these people.

Candidate
Proof of Mailing
Certified
Status
Ted Cruz
(5/11/2015)

Waiting for a response
Mike Huckabeee
(5/11/2015)

Waiting for a response
Dr. Benjamin S. Carson
(5/11/2015)

Waiting for a response
Carly Fiorina
(5/11/2015)

Waiting for a response
Rand Paul
(5/11/2015)

Waiting for a response
Marco Rubio
(5/11/2015)

Waiting for a response
George Pataki
(6/2/2015)

Waiting for a response
Lindsay Graham
(6/17/20150

Waiting for a response
Rick Santorum
(5/29/2015)

Waiting for a response
Jeb Bush


Announcement date is unknown but is definitely running.
Bobby Jindal


Announces June 24th if he is running.
Scott Walker


Is he going to run?
Chris Christie


Is he going to run?
Bobby Jindal


Exploratory committee will announce after June 11th.
Martin O'Malley
(6/2/2015)

Waiting for a response
Lincoln Chaffee


Got response.  Doesn't answer questionnaires.
Jim Webb


Has only exploratory Committee. Going to mail anyways. Has neo-Confederate elements in his thinking.
Rick Perry
(6/4/2015)

Waiting for a response
Donald Trump


Annouced. No FEC filing yet.

Confederate flags at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Mobile, Alabama.

These are the links to the Confederate flags at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Mobile, Alabama.

https://web.archive.org/web/20140601142935/http://www.scvsemmes.org/uploads/3/1/7/8/3178401/229119_orig.jpg

And

https://web.archive.org/web/20140601142935/http://www.scvsemmes.org/uploads/3/1/7/8/3178401/6386330_orig.jpg

The Sons of Confederate Veterans has pulled them off their website but the Internet Archive still has them.

From this web page which was also pulled.

https://web.archive.org/web/20130907225729/http://www.scvsemmes.org/past-activities.html


For more information about what this is about go to this web page.

http://www.templeofdemocracy.com/churches-of-the-confederacy.html


Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Idiot Fox Radio News Commentator John Gibson for the Confederacy, The Conservative Counter-Revolution for the Confederacy is starting.

I am thinking, hell yes, that would be great and that is my plan.

Idiot on Fox News. The conservative counter-revolution for the Confederacy is started.

http://radio.foxnews.com/2015/06/23/confederate-battle-flag-gone-next-statues-then-rename-highways-schools/


Justice Roy Moore spoke to the Council of Conservative Citizens. Listed as source of the material.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ilanbenmeir/chief-justice-of-alabama-supreme-court-once-addressed-white#.xypvXPVN0

Sorry these posts have been short, I have material I need to get out to journalists tonight. I also need to interview.


Article on Sons of Confederate Veteran License plates, I am quoted in the article extensively

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/confederate-license-plates-in-crosshairs-but-not-in-south-carolina-119335.html

People are going to find out about the Frank Conner book and the Sons of Confederate Veterans efforts to promote it.


Thad Cochran's Interview with "Southern Partisan" at Buzzfeed. I am the source for the information

The Buzzfeed story on Thad Cochran's interview in Southern Partisan is at Buzzfeed.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/thad-cochran-defended-mississippi-flags-confederate-emblem-t#.hsWVp7BWX

I supplied the documentation. An excerpt from the article.

Cochran also decried the Voting Rights Act in the magazine, saying aspects of it “ought to be discontinued.”
“No, I think that it is regrettable, and it ought to discontinued,” said Cochran to the magazine. “When we last had the Voting Rights act before the Senate, I offered an amendment to apply the law to all states not just to those of the old Confederacy.”
Cochran explained that his amendment was intended “to show everybody what a great deal of trouble” the law’s ‘preclearance’ requirements were.
At the time, the law required “every political subdivision, local community, township, county and state government, to go to Washington and get the federal government’s permission before any change in a boundary could be made, or any election law could be changed to be certified in effect, that it did not unfairly or improperly disadvantage anyone in their efforts for full political participation.”
“That’s not necessary any longer,” said Cochran.
I have been giving interviews and transmitting information to reporters. Barely can keep up.

Look for some new stories in the coming days. The whole "Heritage Not Hate" slogan is about to be shown for what it is, bogus.

Monday, June 22, 2015

My research on Huckabee and the Council of Conservative Citizens was mentioned at Buzzfeed

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/huckabees-1993-video-to-white-supremacist-group-was-extremel?utm_term=4ldqpia#.ta93eAGa6

The above is the link.


Why doesn't the Sons of Confederate Veterans expel members of the Council of Conservative Citizens from their ranks.

As expected the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) are issuing statements about the massacre in Charleston by Dylann Roof.

The South Carolina Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans has put out a press release. It is on their web page at http://scscv.com/heritage-defense/.

In the press release they state:
The SC Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans has a stringently enforced Hate Policy. We will remove any member who expresses racist hatred sentiments. Anyone with ties to racist organizations will not be granted membership. The perpetrator of the vile act in Charleston has never been a member or associated with the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Unfortunately some other subversive organizations distort Confederate symbols in an attempt to make them stand for hatred and disillusion. The SCV opposes the ideals and actions of such organizations. 

Yet there are members of the SCV who are openly members of the Council of Conservative Citizens and this has been going on for some time. Notice that the press release doesn't mention the Council of Conservative Citizens by name.

For example Robert Slimp has for years been involved with the Council of Conservative Citizens and he wasn't expelled. He has contributed articles to the Confederate Veteran magazine and to the SCV's Southern Mercury magazine. Then there was Leonard Wilson who was the Commander-in-Chief of the Alabama Division of the SCV, he was never expelled. Here and there I recognize names in SCV publications that I saw in the Citizen Informer, the publication of the Council of Conservative Citizens. They don't get expelled from the SCV.

Robert Slimp activities in the Council of Conservative Citizens was mostly fear mongering over the end of Apartheid in South Africa.

One of the SCV Commander-in-Chief, Ron Wilson, contributed articles to the Citizen Informer.

The Citizen Informer mentions that they are at events with the SCV and also mention SCV officers at their meeting.

So if the SCV is really concerned with "subversive organizations" they might start out first by expelling Council of Conservative Citizens members and while they are at it, League of the South members.







Sunday, June 21, 2015

When the Sons of Confederate Veterans worked with the South African Apartheid Government

The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV)  worked with the South African Apartheid government in 1994 and very likely in 1993.

Backstory:

Lt. Simeon W. Cummings of the CSS Alabama accidentally shot and killed himself while grabbing his gun during a hunting trip in South Africa August 3, 1863. The CSS Alabama was a ship of the Confederate navy capturing or destroying American merchant ships around the world. The ship needed repairs and was docked in South Africa. http://clevelandcivilwarroundtable.com/articles/naval/simeon_cummings.htm

He was buried in the Pienaar Family Cemetery in Saldanah Bay, South Africa. The world was quite content to let him remain buried there until sometime in 1993.

SCV and the Apartheid Government

However, starting in 1989 the system of apartheid in South Africa, started to crumble leading to general elections based on universal suffrage being planned in May 1994 in which power would pass to a multiracial democracy in which whites would be a small minority.

SCV Commander-in-Chief Robert L. Hawkins reports in the May-June Confederate Veteran when announcing that Lt. Cummings body had been disinterred and brought to the SCV;s Elm Springs, Tennessee headquarters the following:
Negotiations had been ongoing with the South African government for many months seeking permission to return Lt. Cummings to  the South. Special efforts were made by Street Brewer, an SCV member with business interests in South Africa, which led to a belated agreement that the remains could be disinterred, shipped to Tennessee, and buried on the grounds at Elm Springs.[Hawkins, Robert L., III, "Letter from the Commander-in-Chief," Confederate Veteran, May-June 1994, pp. 2. The Confederate Veteran is the official publication of the SCV.]
Robert W. Betterton, Jr., Executive Director for the SCV and Military Order of the Stars and Bars (MOSB) headquarters mentioned negotiations "several months." [Betteron, Robert W. Jr., "General Headquarters: Office of the Executive Director," Confederate Veteran, May-June 1994, pp. 45]

The grave of Lt. Cummings served as a monument to the Confederacy in South Africa. As Hawkins reports:
On Monday, May 9, 1994, Lt. Cummings' remains were placed on board a returning aircraft accompanied by military honors rendered by the South African Navy, The CSS Alabama, its exploits and crew, are still of considerable interest to South Africans today due to museum exhibits and a popular folk song, sung in Afrikanns, entitled "Here Comes the Alabama." [Hawkins, Robert L., III, "Letter from the Commander-in-Chief," Confederate Veteran, May-June 1994, pp. 2]
Though more accurately it might be said to be of interest to white South Africans. Hawkins doesn't mention what interest the CSS Alabama had to those who didn't sing songs in Afrikanns. Which leads to the reason a grave, which was part of this pro-Confederate historical memory in South Africa had to be moved after 130 years undisturbed in the ground.

The South African apartheid government treated Lt. Cummings like a hero. In an article in the Confederate Veteran, the reader is told:
On May 9th, with a South African Naval Honor Guard and pallbearers, Lt. Cummings was afforded full military honors in a ceremony held at the international airport in Capetown. After the ceremony the Honor Guard carried Lt. Cummings' casket to the aircraft that would, after 131 years, bring him home to Dixie. [Outlaw, Perry J., Betterton, Robert W.Jr, "Home is the Sailor," Confederate Veteran, July-August 1994, pp. 12-13, quote on pp. 12.] 
What did Black South Africans think of the CSS Alabama? I am guessing they didn't think very well of it at all. Suddenly, with the general elections of May 1994 effectively ending apartheid in South Africa, the body of Lt. Cummings would be located under a government selected by voters to which a very great extent were not white.

The SCV talked about the disinterment and reburial  as being Lt. Cummings being brought home, [Hawkins, Robert L., III, "Brief Sketch of the Life and Death of Lt. Simeon W. Cummings: Given by CIC Robert Hawkins, III on May 30, 1994 at Reinterrment Service on the Grounds at Historic Elm Springs," Confederate Veteran, July-August 1994, pp. 3.]

Review of the timing is of interest as to what was happening.

Robert W. Betterton, Jr., Executive Director for the SCV and Military Order of the Stars and Bars (MOSB) headquarters mentioned negotiations "several months." [Betteron, Robert W. Jr., "General Headquarters: Office of the Executive Director," Confederate Veteran, May-June 1994, pp. 45]

Hawkins as mentioned before said "many months." 

 It really seems that the effort was a last minute rush to get Lt. Cummings body out of South Africa before the final end of apartheid with the general elections in May 1994 where all South Africans could vote regardless of race. 

The SCV might say that this act of disinterment is just heritage and such. However, in the very same issue in which the disinterment and reburial is reported, is another section, "Forward the Colors." 

In it is an attack on those who would strive to fight inequality in the United States, a denunciation of civil rights leaders, and an explanation that the Confederate flag is a symbol against these efforts. Efforts for "civil rights are denounced." 

Randy Hill in this section complains about efforts to achieve civil rights and sees the Confederate flag as a symbol in opposition to these efforts. Hill argues that efforts for civil rights are just pretexts for power grabs writing: 
But in the final analysis, whether "economic justice" or "eliminating past symbols of hate" be the message, the goal for the messengers are the same -- empowering themselves.
Who are those who use the unconstrained vision as the stalking horse to gain power in government? In the United States you see many of them as the same groups of politically-correct academicians, politicians, bureaucrats, moral anarchists and militant "civil-rights" leaders who denounce or favor banning the Confederate flag. [Note,: earlier in the article Hill explains that those with "unconstrained vision" are liberals.]
Hill writes:
But a people who are proud of their Southern heritage and are proud of that Flag are, almost without exception, a people who cherish their individual liberties too much to trade them in for promises of utopia. A people who will insist they know more about what's best for themselves and their children than some distant bureaucrat. They will see the United States Constitution as their American and Southern Founding Fathers intended it. Not a piece of judicial taffy to be stretched and pulled on by activist federal judges in order to accommodate their own ideology or latest social theory. It will be people who reject quotas and moral anarchy in the name of "civil rights" and who will challenge revisionist history with truth, and not roll over and play dead when their past is slandered.
And then at the conclusion of the essay Hill writes:
That is what the politically correct bunch really hates about the Confederate Flag. No other symbol in history mocks them so and so unabashedly flings a gauntlet in the face of their true agenda.  
And no other symbol so represents an idea and a people who hold government tyranny in such undisguised contempt. [Hill, Randy, "Taking My Stand, "Confederate Veteran, July-August 1994, pp. 8, boldface in the original.] 
This is the type of anti-civil rights rhetoric the Sons of Confederate Veterans was publishing when they went to get Lt. Cummings. It goes a long way to show what motivated them to suddenly need to bring Lt. Cummings "home."

Finally, it should give the reader pause to consider why America would be considered "home" for Lt. Cummings when South Africa gave up apartheid. 









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