Black Man Proud Of Confederate Flag

Many heads turned in Ringgold Wednesday when they saw an African-American man dressed in a Confederate soldier's uniform, carrying a Confederate flag.


It wasn't a joke. H.K. Edgerton came to Ringgold to make a bold statement - he opposes city leader's removing the Confederate flag from the city's flag pole.


Edgerton says the Confederate flag is misunderstood, feared and hated because people are trying to be politically correct - which he says desecrates the honor and real meaning of the Civil War era emblem.


"I'm here because your town council climbed into bed with all the politically correct folks who are practicing social, cultural genocide here in the south land of America," Edgerton said.


Edgerton is marching against that cultural genocide as he calls it, and is getting a warm welcome from people in Ringgold who support his fight for the Confederate flag.


Jim Caldwell meet Edgerton carrying the flag and said "it's history, part of history and it don't need to be swept under the rug."


Edgerton is from Asheville, North Carolina, where he's also the immediate past president of the N.A.A.C.P. there. His visit to Ringgold marks the five-year anniversary of the same march he made from Asheville to Austin Texas - 20 miles a day, six days a week.


He says he has no respect for modern day civil rights activists who as he puts it, trash the Confederate flag.


"Just pointing to those scally-wags like Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton, who climbed into bed with these folks to increase their coffers to continue tainting and disturbing history," Edgerton said.


Two years ago many people packed Ringgold's city hall to protest the move by city leaders to get rid of the Confederate flag. It flies no more on the town poles.


Edgerton says many people don't understand that black men, alongside whites, fought for the Confederacy and the principals it was founded on.


"So here I am, trying to bring an understanding that there was folks who look like me who earned a place of honor and dignity here under this flag. And this flag is just as much for folks who look like me as any white man in the south land of America," Edgerton said.