Black son of the Confederacy

MIDLAND H.K. Edgerton’s 2.6-mile hike over city asphalt and concrete passed a law firm, Baptist church, doughnut shop, pawn shop and gynecology office.

He was dressed in a Confederate soldier gray wool coat with Confederate soldier olive pants, a Confederate soldier cap and a Confederate States of America replica belt buckle. A Confederate battle flag sat perched on a bamboo pole against his left shoulder.

He has a graying beard along his jaw. He’s 58.

And he’s black.

Needless to say, the double takes started about 100 paces into his mid-afternoon Wednesday march on Big Spring Street to the Midland County Courthouse with local Sons of Confederate Veterans’ members Gary Bates of Midland and Gaylan Harrison of Coahoma.

A cab driver on a cellular phone turned his yellow car left as his head stayed fixed to the right on Edgerton. A black man at the courthouse just shook his head disapprovingly as he smiled off the incongruous sight he’d just seen.

Each turn of the head said some form of this: A black man with a rebel flag — say what?

Ryan Mitchell came out of his father’s car detail shop to ask Edgerton what the heck he was doing. Mitchell’s black and 22. He used to pull Confederate battle flags out of other people’s cars when he’d see them.

“I was just wondering,” he said.

And this is what Edgerton said to the wondering faces and anyone else who stopped to listen: “I’m fighting for all of my family in the Southland of America. … I’m marching out here for our grandpas — all of our grandpas.”

“I don’t have to tell you how our history has been twisted and turned and rewritten.”

And he said, “Don’t believe that crap,” about black men’s roles in the Civil War and the division between the races in the pre-Civil War South.

He wants everyone to know he has pride in his Southern roots and using the Confederate battle flag as a symbol of hate divides his home, he said. His forefathers also fought with honor and dignity under the flag he carried.

“Our Southern history and heritage are being torn down,” he said.

He tells his story with dogged conviction and a tenacious tone. He has an attention-grabbing voice. Harrison called him passionate.

Edgerton answered questions before they were finished. He was also disarming, joking that H.K. stood for handsome and kool, instead of Harold and Kenneth.

“Only my mother knows me by that,” he said.

He’s become a notorious figure for his association, despite his skin color, with what some civil rights advocacy groups label racist causes.

Edgerton’s a former NAACP member who now said he’s walking, fighting and advocating for the “true” Southern history with the stars and bars on his shoulder.

“The story these people tell to keep us divided down here,” he said. “It’s a lie.”

WANT TO GO?

H.K. Edgerton will speak at 7 p.m. today at the Midland Center on the “black contributions during the war between the states.” The event is sponsored by the Sons of Confederate Veterans and United Daughters of the Confederacy.