A "blast"from
the past...WNCCEIB NOTE: The following is an excerpt from the web site of the Texas Cavalry 37th Terrell's a re-enactor's group. Within the 37th's web site is a section entitled "Racists in the Ranks of Southern Heritage"(http://www.37thtexas.org/html/racists.html ) which seeks to expose just what it describes. On July 22, 1997, Kirk D. Lyons' partner and brother-in-law, Dr. Neill Payne apparently submitted the following email weighing in on a controversy within the ranks. Mike Kelly, to whom Payne is writing, runs the web site. Payne's words reveal a level of overt racism that is often hidden from his and Lyons' public expression. Note that in the submission below Payne's, a reader, who is a member of the American Indian Movement and a re-enactor, responds to the racism expressed in Payne's words even though he finds them several years later and reponds on May 22, 2001. The "Editor's notes" found in the excerpt below are the 37th's notes, not WNCCEIB's.
Executive Director of Southern Legal Resource Center Attacks Black, Native American Southerners (See bottom of page) |
A "blast"from
the past...(Editor's note - Neill Payne is the Executive Director of the "Southern Legal Resource Center" [SLRC] and the referenced Bill Rolen is a notoriously open racist from Tennessee - this message appears exactly as it was received)
Subject: Rolen and the "Southern" Ring
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 12:57:59 -0400
From: SLRC <slrc@cheta.net>
Organization: Southern Legal Resource Center
To: mkelley@gcip.net, scvecho@dixie-net.com
To Mike Kelly;
It has been some time since I have witnessed a more pretentious person in action. Your attack on the Tennessee Division for their honorable support of a REAL Southerner, viz. Bill Rolen, is as stunning a display of frozen effrontery as I have ever seen. Who are you to presume so much?
You, what ever you are, are in thought and deed exactly like the sanctimonious Yankee bastards from whom "our" ancestors sought to seceed. We just can't seem to get shed of you people.
Oh now, don't start telling me what a Southerner you are and trotting out your pedigree again. I've seen it. I only need to see the fruit to know what kind of tree I am looking at.
Speaking of trees, I think of woods and speaking of woods makes me think of woodpiles. Speaking of woodpiles makes me think what might be in them. I've often suspected multi-culti maniacs like you of harboring an Aborigine in the arborage. In your case it is a red wood instead of a black gum. No matter. The fact is that (to mix the metaphore also) you have a little horse manure in the ice cream and you want us to pretend it's just chocolate chips.
You also want us to pretend that our ancestors liked horse manure in the ice cream too. Those whom you find don't have quite your taste, you accuse them of food-purity-ism and of being a-historical vestiges of anachronistic, gastronomical imperialism.
But, if you know anything about the old South, you know how much store they set by "who your people were." You know Cuffy (Payne's term for Blacks) and Squanto (Payne's term for Native Americans) were not welcome in the parlor unless they were serving drinks. The majority of the Old South had nothing to do with anyone who sought out the society of inferiors or "heaven forbid" had them in their pedigree.
I've met a few misfits like you in the resurgent Pro-Confederate movement who, like you, are "Desperately Seeking Negroes." They, like you, see the South rising again to reclaim its place among the civilizations of the earth. They, like you, become possessed with this demon-inspired, Hell-spawned mania to remake the South in their own image. Ultimately, they, like you, will never rest until they have clapped their iron-bound idiocy on everyone else. They, as their Puritan intellectual forefathers, are never having more fun than when they are purging the heretics or hunting witches.
Southern gentility, which your purport to admire, would make some allowance for cranks and eccentrics like you people. But, forbearance is never enough for. You are not content for us to allow you to huddle in a corner babbling about what a proto-Multiculturalist Gen. Forrest was. No, you're a carbon copy DamnYankee. You're damned and determined to force-feed your garbage down every unwilling throat and will threaten to shoot anyone who has the temerity to utter a burp.
We Southerners perfected the idea of free speach, the free and unfettered exchange of ideas and opinions. So, I would not seek to stop you from propounding your twaddle. No. I amuse myself by occasionally giving audience to rantings like yours. I am intrigued to find out each time what outer limits of insanity you will have reached.
Be my guest. Go on and frolic in your candy-coated, M & M colored, fantasy land, but leave true Southerners out of your spiteful and vindictive machinations.
In the fond memory or Ft. Pillow, I am truly,
Dr. Neill H. Payne,
Adjutant, I.N. Giffen Camp #758 SCV
"God damn you old horse! Now I shall have to shoot you. How dare you fight against your master?"
From testimony given in the Congressional investigation into the Incident
at Ft. Pillow. These were the last words said to a belligerent Negro by
an angry "sesech" just prior to his releasing a fusilade at the
miscreant. Fortunately, the shot hit Cuffy in the head. Otherwise, the
Confederate could have killed him.
| Payne Angers
Real American |
Subject: A Blast From The Past Sir(s), I read the letter from Neill Payne. This so-called gentleman AND his
organization are racist bigots. His reference to the American Indian as
"Squanto" is equal to his reference to the American Indian women
"squaws," or more correctly quoted "dumb squaws." I
have forwarded a copy of his letter to the American Indian Movement. Kind Regards, |
The 37th Texas apologizes if the language and opinions contained in the Email from the "gentlemen" of the BCSF or SLRC are offensive to the reader despite our efforts to "asterisk" offensive words, but the true impact and intent of the messages require verbatim quotes.
As is our policy, we leave it to the reader to make an individual assessment regarding the BCSF or the SLRC.
Please feel free to contact the 37th directly (Email) or 2nd SGT Harrison (Email) if we may be of further assistance.