Dismantling called ‘woke’ idiocy by those seeking to erase and rewrite history, Edgerton counters 

 The remaining portion of the Vance Monument — its base — standing in the center of downtown Asheville constitutes “a sore spot in the minds of people who live in Asheville”  — and it needs to be removed immediately — former state Representative John Ager, D-Fairview, was quoted as saying by Asheville television station WLOS (News 13) on April 18.

“We need to get this done,” Ager also told News 13, regarding the need for Vance Monument site work. “...it’s a sore spot geographically.”

As for the monument’s base, News 13 stated, “Weathered wood planks cover the bottom — and stains from graffiti marks can be seen on the stone of the base. It’s been three years since the monument was taken down in May of 2021.”

Conversely, H.K. Edgerton, an Asheville native who bills himself as a Southern heritage activist, told the Daily Planet in an April 19 telephone interview., “If Ager grew up Fairview (as a member of the family that owns the iconic Hickory Nut Gap Farm), he doesn’t have ‘any bone to pick’” in deciding the Vance Monument’s fate.

He then asserted, “They (Ager, whom he described as part of a “woke, progressive” coalition seeking power), need to keep their raggedy hands of the Vance Monument. 

“Now there is a movement to take the case all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States,” he added.

When pressed by the Daily Planet for details, Edgerton only would say a decison on whether to proceed with litigation to save the monument is still undecided for now.

Meanwhile, News 13 noted in its April 18 story: “It’s been three years since most of the former Vance Monument was taken down in Asheville’s Pack Square. Questions still remain as to exactly how soon the next steps will be taken....”

The TV station also stated that “Vance Zebulon was a Civil War-era governor who had slaves. As other Southern cities began taking down Confederate monuments, pressure mounted for Asheville leaders to do the same. 

“Though there had been calls for years by local civil rights advocates to remove it, nothing was done until the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis at the hands of city cops. This led to a wave of Southern cities removing monuments seen as symbols of the nation’s racist history.

“Weeks after the North Carolina Supreme Court (on March 22) ruled Asheville leaders had legal authority to dismantle the monument, city leaders have not made any public statement as to when they’ll move forward with a funded renovation plan for the monument area and Pack Square.”

Regarding the Vance Monument, News 13 also quoted Stephanie Monson Dahl, Asheville’s urban plan director, as saying, “These plans will be developed over the next year. Based on concepts captured in the plan and further engagement, the city has not hired a firm to complete these drawings.”

As for Ager, the TV station stated that he “feels enough time has gone by for Asheville leaders to start addressing the site. He hopes whatever the renovation looks like, and whenever it starts, that there’s a display or acknowledgement of those who built the railroad to Buncombe County. Ager feels the ugly history is a critical part of Asheville’s past that needs to be acknowledged when the renovation is done.

“‘Zeb Vance was governor when this project (railroad) was started in the mid 1870’s,’ said Ager. ‘He was desperate to get the railroad into Buncombe County. The state of North Carolina was broke after the Civil War. This is how they got their labor. Ex-slaves, perhaps 3,000, mostly men, were rounded up and sent to work there. Many didn’t have shovels or pick axes to break-up the rock. I think it’s important because it’s the center of Asheville.’”

In response to Ager’s comments and News 13’s story, Edgerton, in his April 19 telephone interview with the Daily Planet, began by stating, “I would say one thing — for those of us who are native Ashevillians, the Vance Monument has been an icon in our community since the first brick was laid. Zeb Vance was the most celebrated person ever... in our (Asheville) community... and in the state.”

He expressed deep mental anguish over what he termed his realization that almost nobody in Asheville knows anything about Vance — while nearly all of the citizenry is willing to blindly accept what he called the propaganda/brainwashing they have received from those who are determined to destroy the monument honoring Vance — which Edgerton calls Asheville’s “crown jewel” — in the center of the city since 1898.

“I suggest — and would suggest — that all those people “who want to ‘know’ what Zebulon Vance was all about,” begin their quest by reading Vance’s literary masterpiece, ‘The Scattered Nation,’ but they probably won’t,” Edgerton said.

(Regarding “The Scattered Nation,” Google Books wrote: “This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.)

He added, “Most of the black people (in Asheville) don’t know who Zeb Vance was... Most of those” wanting to destroy the monument, “use slavery (that Vance was a slave-holder) to justify” their — in his view — nefarious ends. Edgerton also said that many if not most of those actively trying to remove the Vance Monument are whites.

As an Asheville native — and almost- lifelong Ashevillian — who grew up black in the Jim Crow era in the city, Edgerton said, “I have served in civil rights in Asheville” for nearly all of his life, “volunteered in the school system” and was head of the local NAACP” and, in all of that time, until recently, “I never heard any black folks speak badly about the Zeb Vance Monument – not just because it was 75 feet tall. but because of who the man was.

“They (local blacks loved the man because of his stature (as a human being)…. The only problem I have with the Zeb Vance Monument was that they didn’t build it 175 feet tall!”

Critics of Vance say he is not worthy of being honored because he had slaves. What do you think about their decision to disqualify Vance from having a monument to his memory because he was a slaveholder? the Daily Planet asked.

“Who didn’t have slaves” in Vance’s era (1830-1894)? Edgerton replied. “Just down the road in South Carolina (old man (William) Ellison (Jr.), had the largest black-owned slave plantation in South Carolina,” with a reported 53 black slaves before the Civil War in Sumter County. 

(Ellison, who was born into slavery, was a supporter of the Confederacy and was one of the wealthiest property-owners in the state.)

“Slavery is not the issue here — it’s the ‘woke’ agenda and they keep wanting” to destroy history (including Confederate statues) to erase history, so that they can rewrite it to fit their needs to gain and hold power, he said.

“I am a son of former slaves myself. I’ve been fighting for civil rights all my life. … I knew all these (prominent white) people (in Asheville)  — and I knew what was in their hearts” and, in Edgerton’s view, the white leaders of Asheville, generally, were benevolent to local blacks.

As for Vance, Edgerton said, the two-time governor and U.S. senator “had six slaves.” He said that number was dwarfed by the hundreds of slaves owned by Samuel Ashe (for whom Asheville was named) and Edward Buncombe (for whom Buncombe County was named) on their sugar and cotton plantations.

And then there were local notables Nicholas W. Woodfin, James W. Patton and James McConnell Smith, Edgerton added, with records showing the trio enslavd more blacks in Buncombe County than anyone else.

To that end, Edgerton, asked, rhetorically, “do they want to change the names” of Asheville and Buncombe County, given that “they also were named after slaveholders?”

In answering his own question, Edgerton asserted, “Slavery and the Vance Monument are not the issues, they (the “woke” progressives) want to change everything” to create a Marxist utopia.

So what about critics’ contentions that Vance wrote or voiced several “racist” statements about blacks, making him a “white supremacist?” the Daily Planet asked. 

“See... I have a problem with this ‘white supremacist’ and ‘racist’ thing,” Edgerton replied. “I’m a ‘supremacist’ — I think I’m a ‘black supremacist,’” in that he has a very high self-regard for his knowledge and wisdom — and he happens to be black. So, Edgerton explained that he thinks he is smarter than most blacks and whites — and that there is nothing wrong with that stance.

In the same way, Edgerton said he believes Vance had ultra-high self-esteem, but was astute — and had the character — to tell blacks that “I didn’t vote for your emancipation, but it is the law and I will honor that law — and I will vote for building a black teachers school” in Winston-Salem.

“When I was the first black president of the local NAACP, I knew more black people who were segregationist” than whites in Asheville, Edgerton said, regarding critics claiming Vance was a white supremacist.

“In attending some of the prominent black churches in Asheville, I’ve heard prominent black preachers and their black congregants saying worse about white people than anything attributed to Vance about black people,” Edgerton said, as his Daily Planet interview concluded.