This is from the SLRC website; it's part of a speech given by H.K. Edgerton, already cited several times on this thread--the black guy who claims to have walked some 1500 miles through the South, wearing a Confederate uniform and bearing their Flag. In the speech, he argues for having Southerners defionedas a separate ethnic and cultural minority--"We have our own cuisine," he says--and he also says this about the Civil War:
"As an honorary Texan I am especially proud that thousands of black men and black women served humbly, but honorably, in a variety of ways to further the Confederate war effort, alongside their fellow white Texans.
Accompanying their master to war, protecting the farms and plantations and keeping them functioning to raise foodstuffs for armies and civilians, serving on the coastal waters as seamen, working in the blacksmith shops, manning the new factories, armories and foundryÂ’s to make the implements of war, working in the hospitals to succor the wounded and dying, performing back-breaking hard labor for the Confederate Engineer Corps to build the Texas coastal fortifications that kept the Yankees at bay for 4 years.
In almost any labor vacuum created by the war in Texas, black men and women stood ready to fill.
Many of them slaves, some free, all willing to serve Texas and the Confederacy – with no explicit demand for emancipation
The black people of Texas knew that eventually freedom would come and that loyalty and hard work would secure the double reward of independence and freedom.
Right up until 1865 we, the people of Texas, and the South Â… black & whiteÂ… were family. It took the horrible years of Reconstruction and all the wiles of the carpetbaggers and scalawags to divide black and white. And in many cases, tragically, they succeeded.
To this hollow triumph, the North embittered race relations in the South up to the present day, the present hour.
But, as most of you know, the North and its minions did not entirely succeed. Despite all the obstacles, the pressure, the trials, many Southern whites and Southern blacks, in Texas and throughout the South, were able to maintain the close family relationship that existed before the war.
Every man, woman and child in the South, black or white, knows the truth of this statement, and those that say different are liars.
So letÂ’s let it all hang out. Morris Dees, if you are listening, write this down:
A great deal of love existed between master and slave, black and white, before the war – i.e. while slavery was the law of the land.
Do you want me to say it again?
A great deal of love existed between master and slave, black and white, before the war. It is a fact, a solid fact and editing and re-editing the slave narratives will not erase that fact.
Love existed between master and slave. We were family, black and white.
Neither were Southern white people solely responsible for the institution of slavery!"
No doubt them happy, happy slaves was a-doin' the buck-and-wing at every opportunity. And given the propensity of white owners to treat black women as sex slaves, one can only stare in awe at the, "Love existed between master and slave," remark.
These are the guys who are pushing the "white men are oppressed," bit, as well as the, "Southern liberation," jazz.
For sheer looniness, it's hard to eclipse this one, at least this side of Sun Myung Moon.
"Old times are not forgotten,
Whuppin' slaves and choppin' cotton,
And waiting for the Robert E. Lee...
It was never there on time."
---Tom Lehrer, "My Old Kentucky Home"
"In America, you'll get food to eat
Won't have to run through the jungle
And scuff up your feet
You'll just sing about Jesus and drink wine all day
It's great to be an American"
---Randy Newman, "Sail Away"