The Southern Poverty Law Center has an interesting “intelligence report” on Asheville’s own H.K. Edgerton, once the head of the Asheville branch of the NAACP, who took up the Confederate flag several years ago and became a staunch defender of the controversial symbol.
The Southern Poverty Law Center’s new report says Edgerton has now severed ties with the “neo-Confederate movement” that once touted its African-American defender.
In March, after being accused by white neo-Confederate colleagues of financial improprieties, Edgerton quit the fight and furled his flag.
Edgerton served for years as the lone member of the board of advisers of the Southern Legal Resource Center (located in Black Mountain), a position without pay or authority. In that role, Edgerton provided a thin defense against the charges of white supremacy that are regularly levied against SLRC Chief Trial Counsel Kirk Lyons, who was married at the Idaho compound of the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations and has long had close ties to major racist figures.Edgerton’s apparent selflessness made him popular among neo-Confederates, particularly members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), a Southern heritage group that awarded him an honorary membership even though he did not have the requisite Confederate ancestors.
Now, Edgerton is more infamous than popular. Elijah Coleman, a prominent activist in the Georgia SCV, wrote a widely distributed E-mail in early March accusing Edgerton of selling hundreds of SCV-provided battle flags at a NASCAR event and pocketing the funds. Coleman also claimed that Edgerton was demanding huge sums for a new car, even after he was offered one costing $3,000. …
In response, Edgerton sent out an open letter announcing that he was leaving the movement after more than a decade and complaining of his treatment. Edgerton insisted that he received few funds from his compatriots, having selflessly given away his time and impoverished himself only to be called “a money grubber.” Edgerton said he would shut down his neo-Confederate group, Southern Heritage 411, on April 14.
Edgerton cut quite a figure in his woolen Confederate uniform and giant flag. He would stand sentinel on interstate overpasses or at the doors of local businesses. He would talk loudly and proudly of how history shows that black slaves in the Confederate South actually loved their masters and their enslavement. Edgerton even ran for mayor of Asheville back in the day.
We haven’t seen H.K. in years, but we’d love to catch up with him and find out what he’s up to. Meantime, get on over to Dixie Outfitters and buy a Modern Day Southern Heritage Hero T-shirt featuring Edgerton in full regalia before they pack ’em up and toss ’em in the basement.
2 Comments
H.K. was the first "politician" I talked to when I moved to Asheville. He was a good interview. You knew something was up when the president of the NAACP got creamed in a city primary. If I remember correctly.
I used to wonder what dude’s deal was, as I often saw him standing on the Montford overpass near our office. But that shirt as the bottom of the post…spell-check much?