Vance Monument proposal: Renamed it MLK Jr. Memorial 

Given the harsh reality of the City of Asheville’s seriously stressed current financial condition (which is millions of dollars in the hole and underwater due to City Council’s indulgence in wasteful expenditures for which it has insufficient income), a proposal:

Instead of the city having to bear the enormous cost to tear down and haul away the Vance Monument, why not save the money and just name it the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial?

And while at it, maybe the City Council should pass an ordinance that officially changes the city’s name. After all, it honors Samuel Ashe, North Carolina’s first governor and 18th century slaveholder.

Perhaps Congress should be urged to change the name of our nation’s capitol, since George Washington was a slaveholder. 

Maybe we should consider a public shredding of the Declaration of Independence (current under glass in the Library of Congress) that was authored by another slaveholder, Thomas Jefferson.

And what about our federal Constitution? After all, many of the Founding Fathers who participated in the Constitutional Convention (Washington, Madison, Franklin, Hamilton (just to name a few) were all slaveholders!

All this current hysteria and pitifully simplistic, childist, naive and foolish feel-good attempt to eradicate and revise our history will serve no useful purpose. 

Instead, it better serves us all to look our nation’s history in the face and learn from it so that we do not repeat the mistakes and wrongs of our past.

Enough already — Trump must be voted out Nov. 3

President Trump never ceases to amaze me.  

He tweets a clip showing a man yelling “White Power” not once but twice — and then has the unmitigated gall to say “I didn’t hear anyone say. ‘White Power!’”  

I, for one, have had enough of Trump’s blatant lies, misinformation and hateful rhetoric. 

On Nov. 3, as an independent voter, I will not be voting for President Trump or any of the candidates who support this corrupt individual.  

Can you hear me now. Mr. President?

City’s black-clad hooligans frighten most fragile citizens 

Just in case anyone thinks that rioting on the streets is peaceful for everyone, I could point you to the night an unidentifiable hoard of people descended on the pavement next to two elderly housing towers downtown. 

An auntie of mine was alerted by a fellow resident that loud noises were coming from black-clothed hooligans with a bullhorn shouting at the top of their lungs. 

They were so close that if any of them had attempted to break into their building, the residents were helpless at the mercy of unknown perpetrators. 

The women told me that they barricaded themselves in their apartments with furniture against the door thinking they could be assaulted at any moment. 

The problem is how does one distinguish between legitimate protestors and rioters? If they are all shouting the same thing, can we or the police make that distinction? 

If they tear the place down, nobody’s life will matter! 

Living in chaos benefits no one. And would they shoot their foot thinking they have made an improvement?

Do not shut down Asheville, again

It would be a huge mistake to shut down Asheville, again.

It would definitely kill the patient that is already on life support.

There is no second wave. That is part of a political agenda to hurt President Trump.

The numbers coming out of the government prove that the virus was less deadly than the seasonal flu. If our leaders go for this second wave, being ginned up by the establishment media, then they will be making a tragic mistake of epic proportions and will finally kill the city’s economy.

Do not fall for this ruse!

The people of Asheville will never forgive our leaders. In the short run, people may be afraid and go along with it, but in the long run they will know the truth and will clean house politically here in Asheville.

Vance Monument squabble called 'greatest poppycock' 

The intent of the governing boards of the City of Asheville and Buncombe County that the Vance Monument be replaced or altered in such a manner, as “to honor the local history of African-Americans” is the greatest piece of poppycock that I have ever heard, and is obscene.

The local history of the African-American community has nothing to do with the place of prominence of the cenotaph of Governor Vance. 

The Historic Black District lies just a stone’s throw way, and has been abdicated by the so-called black business and religious “leaders” who owned a lion’s share of the properties that was supposed to be revitalized under the Eagle Market Street Development Plan; under the guise that this process would begin with the help of the city and county, if the area was rid of the lawlessness that was pervasive in the area.

And, with the help of Police Chief Will Anarino, and my leadership at the NAACP;  whose office was located in the Cultural Center, we completed that charge… only to see a complete “sell-out” of that goal after the illegal election against my presidency took place. Why? Because like (U.S. President Donald) Trump; “I was draining the swamp.”

Even the YMI Cultural Center that for years served as the minority component that attracted funds in state and national cultural arts arena is basically NO MORE.

This is where the local history of the (Asheville) black community was highlighted during and shortly after Jim Crow under the leadership of nine designated black churches who held its deed of ownership, and let fall in disarray financially.

The Cultural Center is now a bar and grill, no longer administrated under black leadership, and (with) very little black community participation. This is the greatest travesty done to cultural activities in the African-American community.

The Vance Monument has NEVER posed any harm to the black community.  This attack is just another reconstruction modus operandi  assault on Southern history using black folks as the weapon of choice against the white community. 

I discovered the ulterior motives of the race hustlers actually working AGAINST the black community in my work with the Joint Asheville-Buncome County Office of Minority Business. I was able to secure a NAACP seat on its Community Board, and in that position, served on the Joint City & County Committee that rewrote the Minority Business Plan.  

There, I learned about the Community Re-Investment Act that would allow banks to fund various minority business ventures;  only to be informed by the late Honorable City Councilman and Vice President of 1st Citizens Bank, Rock McClure, that the national office of the NAACP had told national banks NOT to provide monies directly to communities they served , but INSTEAD to give the money to the National NAACP for distribution.

My black business community never saw a dime of that — race problems, poppycock! SHAKEDOWN.

This (Vance Monument) task force is nothing more than an attempt to finish what the reconstruction in the South failed to accomplish the first time — and to justify the continuous attack on the heritage and culture of the Southern people using unsuspecting blacks as the weapon of choice.

Who will take the blame for this unholy act??? Black Southerners.

Then, once again ushering in hate against our people, something that black civil rights organizations (Pole Bearers Organization, Knights Brotherhood Monumental Organization) declared that they would never let happen again!

Born and raised in this city (Asheville), all I ever heard about the Vance Monument from black folk ... “Mom can you pick me up at the Vance Monument?” “Daddy can you take pictures of us in our caps and gowns at the Vance Monument?” Even when civil rights protest with sit-ins occurred at S&H Kress food counter ... “We are going to protest and meet later at the Vance Monument.”

Racial inequities in this city of mine and across the South are — and always have been — something that could be overcome with hard work, honesty and good manners.

The South does not deserve the social and cultural genocide that those who don’t and won’t leave the Southern people alone continue to bring to us under the preponderance that they have come to help us.  Leave us alone!!!!  Especially the war memorials of the integrated armed forces of the Confederate War Machine!!!!

I, H.K. Edgerton, was born and raised in the heart of the Jim Crow-era in the year that Israel became a state; with a picture of the Honorable General Robert E. Lee on my Mom’s mantle-place… a man who my Mom called Christ-like in the South, a devout Christian — and a friend to the Negro race.

Never, ever did I know or hear of a black man’s desire to deface the monument to him (Lee), adjacent to the monument of the Honorable Zebulon Baird Vance, whose family cut out the land that is now Asheville. 

This Asheville City Council and the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners have no legal right to remove any of the Confederate cenotaphs, or that of three- time governor, three-time senator and most highly decorated citizen in the history of the State of North Carolina — Zebulon Baird Vance.  State law prohibits it, but so does MORAL LAW.

And to those two black City Council members and the Jewish mayor who betrayed the Jews with this vote  I say that “you are no better than the boot blacks, carpetbaggers, and scalawags that sold (out) the South during the 12-year-period of Reconstruction.

And all the hate that was caused between Southern black folk and their white Southern family because you used the black folk to continue the Thaddeus Stephens-style persecution agenda against the South; that debt almost paid by Southern blacks, and now you want to use us again because a black man in a Northern town was killed by a Northern policeman.  It had NOTHING to do with Asheville, Buncome County or Zebulon Vance.

At a time when the Jews were being persecuted by almost the entire world , to include the Catholics and a slew of other faiths and countries, it was the voice of Zebulon Baird Vance that was heard defending what he called “an honorable people” —  and that they deserve not to have to wander, but should have “a Jewish state.”

In reading his most famous lecture (“The Scattered Nations”), the Jewish people would vow that they would never give a “no” vote against this honorable man. 

The mayor of Asheville (Esther Manheimer) betrayed that sacred oath that was made by the Jewish people when she allowed the vote to remove the cenotaph of Governor Vance (at Pack Square) to be placed on her (Asheville City Council) agenda — and even worse to vote “yes” for the removal. 

God bless the Jewish people for the help that so many have given to me in my entire lifetime here in this city where I was born and raised — and in many points beyond.