Letter: I support the protection of historic Florida monuments

Harold K Edgerton, NAACP Past President
Asheville, North Carolina

Dear Historic City News readers:

I am now in my 70’s and old enough to have been called “negro”, then “colored”, then “Afro”, then “black”, and now “African American”. But, when it comes to color, I am simply red, white, and blue. I am a proud American. I served as a soldier in the US Army and today I fight for civil rights for all Americans.

February is “beat up on white people in the South” month, and I am sick and tired of it. Only in the South have blacks and whites sat together at Rev Dr ML King’s table of brotherhood. Those who are taking down Florida monuments proclaim to be “helping” black people — but they’re not. They are pulling the table of brotherhood away.

I am calling on all veterans to remind their state legislators about the sacred oath they took to defend the nation against all enemies — foreign and domestic. Today’s enemies sit on city councils and county commissions. They must be stopped from advancing the divisive, communist agenda that has been underway in Florida for several years.

I have traveled from St Augustine and St Johns County to Broward County, to Escambia County, to Lee County, to Duval County, and many places in between. I speak at public meetings where local government officials are considering destroying or removing historic cenotaphs and memorials recognizing the service of Florida soldiers.

In nearly every case, it seems the cultural Marxists fill the room with bussed-in black-boot thugs, brainwashed college students, and Hamas supporters. I have watched them call the local citizens bad names, attack what they hold dear, and watch them squirm and writhe like a Communist Chinese “struggle session”.

These destroyers are part of an ongoing cultural revolution against American tradition, the family, and our history. They are using Critical Race Theory and similar propaganda to divide us along color lines. In many cases, Florida’s local elected officials have been threatened and communities have been held hostage by those who want to destroy Florida’s history by any means necessary.

In Manatee County, one town was terrorized by a thug who led a so-called “peaceful protest” that included a disruptive march through downtown. The leader was a county commissioner wearing a county-issued work shirt bearing the Manatee County logo. Protesters included members of ANTIFA and other radical groups who were bussed in from all over the state.

To my surprise, it worked. The County Commission caved and when the historic cenotaph was broken into three parts and then removed in the middle of the night, it made national news. The memorial still has not been restored to where it belongs.

Most Southerners, black and white, realize that memorials to American soldiers from all wars are not black or white memorials – they are for us all. I continue to challenge, as I have in the past, those who say they are “offended” by such memorials to take a lie detector test. As of today, no one has accepted my challenge.

The legislation currently being promoted by Sen. Martin and Rep. Black is the best legislation I have ever seen and should become a model for other states. The Southern Poverty Law Center, of course, is doing everything it can to prevent that from happening.

I will keep standing up for the southern veteran monuments, cenotaphs, and memorials around Florida and hope that the Florida Legislature and Governor DeSantis will too.

About HK Edgerton
In 2007, while most southerners hadn’t been distracted from sipping sweet tea, eating BBQ, and watching NASCAR, HK Edgerton was cautioning that an organized effort was underway to erase everything “Confederate” from American History. This effort sought to fix blame exclusively on the South and the Confederacy for the “evils of slavery”. The battle plan was to remove all Confederate flags, monuments, statues, plaques, and names of Confederate leaders from public view by calling them “racist” and “symbols of hate”. Edgerton made national news when he marched to Texas to protest a move by presidential hopeful George W. Bush to remove a historic plaque from the Texas Supreme Court. At a Veterans Day parade in Columbia, SC, Edgerton was attacked by an ANTIFA member who knocked out all his front teeth.