THE RED SHIRTS RIDE AGAIN !
Summerville, S.C.
....Staff Reporter
On Friday morning 15 October with very short notice, Lourie Salley, the South Carolina League of the South chairman put out a call for the Red Shirts to ride. The cause of the call was to defend a brave lady in Summerville for her stand for the Southern cause and our Confederate flag. Ms Annie C. Caddell, a white lady, moved not long ago into a predominately black neighbourhood. She was born in South Carolina, but had lived in Ohio for some time. Some time after moving in she did what any good Southerner should do; she placed a Confederate flag on the front of her house. Of course some black bigots in the neighbourhood immediately started calling her a racist and demanding that she remove her flag. She is a steel magnolia and stood her ground.
Some of the ignorant black bigots organised a protest march for Saturday morning 16 October for which they claim they would have 200 participants. Annie had planned to leave town for the day in order not to be confronted by a hostile crowd. A young man visited her, told her he was on her side and then contacted Larry (Lourie) Salley. Larry quickly started making phone calls to various people who, in turn, started making phone calls to others in order to rally the troops. Larry then made a call to H.K. Edgerton in North Carolina and invited him to join the fun. H.K. is the black man who dresses in a Confederate uniform and carries a large Confederate flag to protest against anti-Confederate flag groups everywhere. We had Red Shirts from Charleston, Aiken, Lexington, Abbeville, Columbia, Summerville and elsewhere from around our fair state gather that morning.
By the time the black racist march came by Annie's house, there were about thirty Red Shirts and friends with thirty or more Confederate flags in Annie's front yard. The flag haters could muster but seventy persons for their march including two South hating whites. The thing that surprised them and they disliked the most was to see H.K. in his Confederate uniform with his “Starry Cross”.
At one time there were four video cameras from various media and three or four reporters for various papers and wire services on the street or in Annie's front yard interviewing Annie, Larry and H. K., our designated spokespersons.
The news media actually got the numbers of flag supporter and flag hating marchers right for a change and we got what we consider fair coverage.
It was a good event for the S.C. League, because we got fair media coverage, got our name before the public again, took a supportive stand with a brave Southern lady, faced down the South haters, and most important of all, gained three new members that day.
May God save the South!