HK Edgerton at Pro-Cenotaph Rally at Putnam County Courthouse - Summer 2020
I can't think of a better birthday present than to hear the news that in Palatka, Florida the Cenotaph to the Confederate soldier...white, black, brown, red and yellow...all of them...will remain! And that not a dime was raised for its destruction.
Last year the County Commission set a threshold of $200,000 for those that sought to take down the Cenotpah to raise for it to be removed to a narrow causeway under a bridge in a flood zone named "Veterans Park"...a site that would require much improvement to support any such edifice. Rumor has it that the best the haters could do was to offer $17,000 to take down and destroy the solider that has been erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and has stood a reminder for over 100 years of the sacrifice of the united Southern people at the hands of the invader from the north that came to pillage, plunder, rape and reconstruct and the defense made by men who looked like me and those they would call 'master' and 'friend'.
I have to extend a "thank you" to all the people in Putnam County that came out time and time again to show me love and who showed love for their community by fighting for their Cenotaph and what it means, especially to Commissioner Rawls who refused to compromise and who understood that you can't negotiate with terrorists...and that is what those who want to clear the landscape of any vestagaes of my family and yours are.
I look forward to the day that I can return again to that city where my little brother and I were welcomed at the opening of the Dixie Outfitters store and later invited back to participate in the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Peace March, and then later still to stand side by side with Mr. McCallister and many others in support of that historic Cenotaph.
I know my mother, Miss Anna Bell Edgerton, must be smiling with pride for the little role I was able to play in this great result.
God bless you and God bless Dixie.
- HK Edgerton
Member, Save Southern Heritage - FL