Contrary to assertions recently made by the chairman of the Asheville-Buncombe County Community Reparations Committee,  America’s slaveholding Founding Fathers’ George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were not hypocrites and, instead were “great men,” and United States was not founded on fraud to preserve slavery, but, instead, still stands as the greatest and freest naton in history, according to H.K. Edgerton, a black Southern heritage activist and Asheville native. 

In a May 5 interview with the Daily Planet, Edgerton lambasted Dr. Dwight Mullen, chairman of the local reparations panel, for his views expressed in an interview with the newspaper (that appeared in its April 12 issue), as well as an address on “Reparations” to the Ethical Society of Asheville on April 16 (that appeared in the April 26 edition of the Daily Planet).

Edgerton began the interview by advising Mullen, “At some point, Dwight, you’ve got to let some of this stuff loose!”

He then — as in a previous interview with the Daily Planet — derided Mullen as “a poverty pimp” for seeking handouts rather than directing young blacks to focus on learning in schools and their parents to instill good manners and a work ethic in their children. 

In another verbal shot at Mullen, a retired political science professor at UNC Asheville, Edgerton asserted, “He’s in trouble with everybody. He’s in trouble with his good Christian white folk friends. He’s trying to stay out of trouble with his black friends.”

As for Washington and Jefferson, he added, “With the legal system of the U.S at that time, slavery was legal. They were just operating within the economic system and were within the law.” 

Continuing, Edgerton said, “Under the law at that time (circa 1776), whites and freed men of color could own slaves” — and did.

He added, “Well, Thomas Jefferson agonized over it (slavery)... With slavery, it’s a caste system” — and Jefferson inherited most of his reportedly 600 slaves.

Further, in reference to Jefferson, nicknamed the “Sage of Monticello,” Edgerton said, “The man was a great thinker and a great writer.” He reiterated that Jefferson “agonized over it (slavery).”

As for Mullen and the local reparations panel, “These people have a grandiose (ill-conceived) idea about these men, but these were very honorable and great men,” Edgerton said.

So why would Mullen, a retired UNCA political science professor, see history — at least in Edgerton’s view — so differently from him? the Daily Planet asked.

“Well, Dwight is a hypocrite,” Edgerton replied. “Any time you deal with reparations, you go ‘down a rabbit hole’ that’s pretty deep... I love Dwight. I don’t see him as a black supremacist or black racist....” 

However, Edgerton said, “There’s nothing legal about reparations… And I don’t think slavery was our (the U.S.’) ‘original sin.’ These (Washington, Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers) were very honorable men — and women,” who conceived and launched a nation that is — in his view — the freest and most prosperous in world history.

When pressed further by the newspaper as to what he sees as Mullen’s motivation in leading the local reparations effort, Edgerton said, “All this is, is to try to garner some support from some very ‘unknowledgeable’ people.”

In Edgerton’s observation, and from what he has seen and read, almost all of those around Asheville who attend meetings featuring Mullen lack skepticism, critical thinking skills and he wonders if any ever have extensively read books that have been written objectively about local history.

At that point, he stressed that “slavery is not something just ‘conducive’ to black folk.” Historically speaking, Edgerton said that every race of people has been enslaved at times. In America, there were whites who owned white and black slaves and there were “free blacks” who owned black slaves.

“What they (Mullen and his cohorts) don’t want to do is go back to the time of Jesus Christ. There was slavery even then.”

“The American Revolution was not couched in ‘freedom to continue to have slavery,’ but It sounds good to them (Mullen’s backers when he says that), but it’s not true.”

After a pause, Edgerton asserted, “People don’t know this stuff because of our school system. They (Mullen’s political brethren) inculcate all these lies in the children (in school), so that can promote their own agendas.

“Dwight wants to look good” to the local black community, Edgerton said. “He’s turned into a poverty pimp. They (city and county leaders) gave him a job to make him look good,” as he fit the role of chair of the reparations panel — in Edgerton’s estimation — as a well-dressed, dignified-looking, learned-seeming, retired professor, who, most importantly, is black.

Worse, Edgerton said, Mullen “passionately, ‘lyingly’ and ‘distortingly’ continues to make his case for reparations in a community that either does not know history well enough to challenge him — or does not care.

In speaking of those experts who claim to know local history, “I don’t care how many titles or degrees in front of their names, especially with Dwight... A lot of them are biased. My God, there are more people biased in public school system” than in any other profession in the nation.

So what does Edgerton think of Mullen’s comment in his address to the Ethical Society of Asheville that “I’m wondering what type of therapies are needed to change the DNA of America?” the Daily Planet asked.

Edgerton replied, “‘The DNA of America?’ What the hell does that mean? Blacks are held (in a trance) by folks like Dwight. He doesn’t want to talk about reparations.” Instead, Mullen is seeking power and handouts — “‘Give me this and give me that....’”

Instead of wallowing in victimhood and seeking atonement through reparations, as he feels Mullen urges, Edgertson instead said the solution is very simple: “I’d say, ‘give the ‘young ones’ the directions to the schoolhouse.’ They don’t care about the color of your skin” at what he termed “the schoolhouse.”

Edgerton added that he believes that Mullen, who he knows to have far-left political leanings, “fears we’ll re-elect Donald Trump as president.

“I’d rather wait for Donald (Trump) to get his armies assembled (after his presumed re-election) — and get my reparations from Africa. Put all that gold and silver (hidden away in Africa) — and stack it on a table” for Edgerton and other U.S. blacks, whose ancestors were sold into slavery, often with the complicity of black tribal chieftains, who received payments from the slave-traders, he said.

Despite Mullen’s professed reverence for Africa and African traditions, Edgerton said that there are “more slaves in Africa, now, than on any other continent in the world.”

He reiterated that, contrary to what he termed Mullen’s romanticized view of Africa — and all things African, “The United States remains the greatest country in the world. If he loves (Mullen) Africa so much, why doesn’t he go back and get my property back” for him from Edgerton’s ancestral homeland?

So what does Edgerton think about PEAK Academy, at which Mullen is a board member and has often referred to it as a local future model for black education, with its requirement of at least 50 percent black representation, each, of students, teachers and staff? the Daily Planet asked.  

“It says much about his (Mullen’s) own personal bigotry,” Edgerton answered, noting that PEAK Academy, in his view, is “going back to segregation,” but, this time, imposed by blacks. 

Instead of seeking reparations, Edgerton said, “You’ve got to be the person to dig in” and advocate for teaching young blacks to be able to read and write, add and subtract, multiply and divide, and to exhibit good manners, including saying “yes, sir” and “yes ma’am.” 

To that end, he noted, “I’ve volunteered to teach... The biggest problem with the black child usually is the parents.”

In contrast, he said, “The little Chinese babies are at home studying, really hard. And then their parents will make sure they’ll be in bed early, so theywill be able to perform (well in school tomorrow...

“If you teach children at home bigotry and hatred, they’ll bring it to school,” as he lamented is too often the case that he has seen with young black students.

As for charges (which Mullen has denied) that he is espousing segregation at PEAK Academy, Edgerton then told the Daily Planet, “Well, you tell Dwight, I’ve been working on a time machine — and I’ll take him back, free of charge, to the time of segregation” and see how he likes that.

“He (Mullen) must have some hellacious white friends for him to be brave enough to make a statement like that” — in favor of a school that deliberately practices segregation,

 In Mullen’s previous statements to support his case that the best way to education young local blacks is to be in a school, or schools, that have a majority of black teachers and staff, Edgeraton responded, “That is one of the most bigoted comments” he ever heard from anyone of any race. 

After another pause, Edgerton added, “A black bigot is as bad as a white or red or yellow bigot. And I’m so shocked that Dwight Mullen has defined himself as a bigot and as a black racist. He’s done a high disservice to the people around here. I don’t know what’s in that water out there in Watts,” the poor, mostly black neighborhood in south Los Angeles, Calif., where Mullen grew up.

Following what he termed Mullen’s racist statements, Edgerton said, “The mayor should have told Dwight Mullen to step down from the reparations committee... Unless, he said, ‘Well folks, this is my joke for tonight.’”

Returning to the topic of the PEAK Academy (located at 27 Balm Grove Avenue in West Asheville), Edgerton said, “I would not send my child there. I don’t want to send my child where people are still inculcating bigotry and hateful thinking processes. I don’t want my child to be in a place that supports segregation. If I’ve got to believe that a board member says what Dwight has said, I think PEAK Academy symbolizes hatred and segregation...” 

At that point, Edgerton said, “I started out this interview saying ‘I love Dwight’ — now I’m scared of him,” based on the political views he has expressed in public recently.

“I’m so glad that the circles that I run with — they don’t think like he does.... I think Dwight has turned into a monster.”

In concluding the interview with the Daily Planet, Edgerton said, “The No. 1 problem is what’s happening in the house. So it is the black parents” who are at fault. They need to be “teaching them (their children) to say ‘yes, sir’ and ‘yes, ma’am.’ I was there — I was in the school system” as a volunteer tutor many times. “The truth really hurts.”