By Frank Powell
Lately, it has been de rigueur for hysterical left-wing activists around the Triangle to slander the Sons of Confederate Veterans with fabricated charges of “white supremacy” and connections to the Ku Klux Klan. This strategy of lies is nothing more than an indication that these people have no logic or reason behind their hatred for us and thus, resort to using witch-hunt tactics and race-baiting to try and bring us down.
As we have been saying to the public for as long as we can recall, Confederate memorials and symbols are just the first step. This new campaign of renewed political correctness will not stop when we are gone and our ancestors are totally and wrongfully discredited. These extremists will target anything and everything which represents truth and is inconvenient to their political objectives. No monuments or memorials from any period of American history will be safe; neither will names, legacies, and basic historical fact. If the general, voting public allows it, everything will disappear at the hands of the same mob who has taken the law into its own hands in Durham, Chapel Hill, and now Raleigh.
These renewed accusations against us are especially ironic given when these activist groups showed up on March 3 at the State Capitol to try to disrupt our 32nd Annual Confederate Flag Day observance, their ranks were no more “diverse” than ours … a strange but noteworthy observation given their monotonous message that we are the “racists.”
As they screamed obscenities, despite the presence of young children, and spit on us one of their number was conducting an interview with a member of the media. As if to completely ignore what was going on not ten feet away from the interview, the activist told the cameras he was present to prevent us from bringing violence to the otherwise peaceful city of Raleigh. As he clearly inhabits a different reality than the rest of us, it is worth pointing out our organization has held this observance for more than 30 years without any incident and further, the streets of downtown Raleigh were peaceful UNTIL the activists showed up to try to ruin our simple, solemn observance.
Our sole purpose is to honor our ancestors and the contributions they made to North Carolina. To say our membership is full of white supremacists and to manufacture claims of connections to hate groups is patently false. It is a tired, old exercise in hysteria and name-calling. It used to be more effective but now, because it is so overused and transparent, its only seems to make those who ignorantly shout it less peaceful and more militant.
The smell of “hate” isn’t coming from us … it’s coming from those who hate us. If you want to see it for yourself, look them up on social media.
An abbreviated version of this editorial appeared as a letter to the editor in the March 24, 2019, issue of the Raleigh News & Observer.