Yesterday was Martin Luther King Day in America, a public holiday. I was told months ago that there would be a counter demonstration against its celebration in Forsyth County, Georgia.
Two days ago I found the speech that was prepared to be delivered at the steps of the courthouse by Richard Garrett, leader of the Nationalist Movement. You are adults. You can inspect that speech and draw your own conclusions while we still have the First Amendment in America.
Below is about one-fourth of what was prepared to be said. I don't know if it was actually delivered and, if so, what the reaction might have been. You can find the entire speech at http://www.nationalist.org/speeches/ga1.html#Strength
Read it and let me know what you think!
Background:
The battle to deliver this speech - and to organize effective rightist social action - took ten full years. During that time, the speaker (Richard Barrett) faced criminal prosecution, civil lawsuits, threats, rioting and even an arson attack for trying to deliver it.
In 1987, pro-majority forces were written off as illegitimate, without funds and the object of scorn and persecution. By 1997, The Nationalist Movement had established itself as a leading force in the nation; all charges against it and its members had been defeated and, especially amazing, officials who had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to stop it had failed entirely.
At the eleventh hour, officials tried to impose a law requiring a notary to approve the speech and even secured a court order banning the parade.
The speaker announced that he would defy the ban. The officials, for the final time, surrendered unconditionally. The Nationalists had amassed an impressive string of legal victories of their own, including in the United States Supreme Court. They are now conducting massive street protests, broadcasting and publishing and adding to their far-flung superstructure, all while turning public affairs and public sentiment to the Right.
Here is Richard Barrett in "Our Strength and Our Fortress" Speech on Patriots' Day of Defiance, Forsyth County Courthouse, Cumming, Georgia, January 20, 1997:
"My countrymen. Patriots.
Ten years ago, the people of Forsyth County, Georgia were outcasts at their own courthouse. Today, the keys of Forsyth County are in your hands. For you have unlocked the portals of tyranny and established Fortress Forsyth as your Fortress of Freedom.
Because Fort Ticonderoga was wrested from occupation by those sympathetic to King George III, the crown of monarchy was toppled by patriots of their day. Because Citadel Cumming has been taken from the supporters of Martin Luther King, the crown of minority would-be monarchs has been struck down by patriots of today.
For this is your Patriots' Day of Defiance. And of resurrection. And of victory.
When I approached this spot ten years ago, banners were waving from street poles, hung by the bankers, welcoming the January Invaders from the slums of inner-city Atlanta.
It seemed a foregone conclusion that Kingism was the immovable object, that the Bi-Racial Committee would dictate policy and that honest, upright and patriotic citizens who wanted majority, not minority, rule were to be reduced to the status of heretics to be silenced at all costs, to even be hunted down like wild beasts.
Today, I see Old Glory, the Georgia Flag and the Crosstar flag flying instead, proclaiming the victory of Forsyth County over invaders, minorities, tyrants and oppressors. And for us, this is a day of rejoicing and celebration.
My countrymen: the question in 1987 started out to be not if Hosea Williams and his January Invaders were immovable objects, but simply how quickly could their demands be met. But as opposition mounted and patriots organized, the question turned to what would happen if the immovable object of adherents to Martin Luther King, the Father of Black Power, met the irresistible force of adherents to George Washington, the Father of our Country?
But since all of Hosea Williams' horses and all of Martin Luther King's men not only moved back, but retired from the field, the question has been answered: Kingism proved to be the movable object. And nationalism proved to be the irresistible force.
You have won back this place so that you could take your rightful place in the council of public affairs. And that most vital decision in the history of nations and peoples hangs upon the outcome of your deliberations and your dedication.
Nowhere has a people demonstrated better their commitment to a new, purified and better community of the nation than Forsyth County. You came first by the hundreds, then by the thousands, pouring into the streets, with flags in your hands and freedom on your lips. You won the hearts of millions. You have earned the right to be heard.
On other days, the question may have been: "What will America be like?" But, after you have spoken, the question must inescapably be: "What will America look like?"
Today, Coretta King will be saying that America should look like South Central Los Angeles. Bill Clinton will be saying that the country should look like West Hollywood. But Forsyth County says that the nation should look like Mount Rushmore.
Never before has a more fateful choice faced the American People. If we give more than a passing thought to what our own children will look like, it is our right and duty to determine what the countenance of our countrymen will be.
So, when some say, "Let Americans have more money in their pockets," but they say nothing about more freedom in your lives, they take the low road. When others clamor, "Let Americans be safe on their streets," but without freedom to buy or sell or work or even speak here on these streets, they take the wrong road.
We turn instead to the right and to the upward path, when we say: "Let America look like Forsyth County." Let all of America be such a fortress of freedom, such a place of progress, such a citadel of happiness. For what we are comes from who we are. And we know who we are. The countenance of George Washington. The daring of Paul Revere. The genius of Thomas Edison. The invincibility of Douglas MacArthur. For we are the American People.
As we journey to new heights and to new triumphs, we heed the signpost along the way: "Freedom is the absence of one's enemies."
Monaco has 30,000 inhabitants, 25,000 of which owe allegiance to other countries and only 5,000 of whom are citizens. A large portion of the population of Kuwait is comprised of those who call other countries home - just as some ten-percent of residents in America have placed their allegiance in Martin Luther King, over George Washington, and even Africa, above the United States.
To believe therefore that sheer numbers imposes minority power as a permanent fixture denies the authority of your own senses, your own reason and thrusts you down on your knees before those who are impudent enough to declare that they are "civil" and "right" and that you are "uncivil" and "wrong."
My fellow-citizens, I have never believed that there was anything "civil" about burning down the City of Los Angeles. I have uncovered nothing "right" in the ashes of Devil's Night in Detroit. I must look elsewhere. And I have found the ideal. A "civil" place where men speak kindly and walk reverently. A place which is "right" because it knows right from wrong, patriotism from tyranny. A place so "right" that it defied mayors and governors, senators and presidents, to defend its way of life and, in doing so, gave hope to millions for change and justice.
But the characterizations of what we are supposed to call "civil" and "right" were made by the ghosts of the sixties. The hands that signed the so-called civil rights' decrees are now skeletons in their graves. To continue the Cult of Kingism, the unholy adulation of minorities, not only by self-worshipping minorities of themselves but the continual genuflecting of Americans toward minorities, this generation must affix its signature to the pacts of 1964 and 1965.
But honest men here today prefer to stand erect, intrepid, careless of the phantoms of the past and the spells of witch doctors of the present. Those who cringe and crawl as minorities rip down the sign Union Avenue in Portland, dedicated to the union of this nation, and replace it with Martin Luther King Boulevard, dedicated to the disunion of this nation, will not deprive others of the more perfect Union that they have not the courage to stand for.
Whatever is written or said about this day, one conclusion is inescapable: "He who marches last, marches best."
Our task today is not to repeat lying words that lead to the nation's collapse, but to fashion new phrases which will lead to its resurrection. Not to sully the countenance of the people with shame, but to glorify your lineage with honor.
Those who would have you refer to the King Holiday as "untouchable" are not unlike those who referred to the Titanic as "unsinkable." They must first change your state of mind so they can change the way you act.
Even Judge Robert Bork concedes in his book that no multi-ethnic society has ever existed except by the imposition of force. So, the Kingmen must convince you that force in your daily lives, in the workplace, in schools, in your neighborhood, is somehow civil and that despotism is somehow is right.
Queen Victoria once said to her detractors: "We are not amused."
The great engine which is the American System can be fired only by freedom, the wheels of civil government can be turned only by consent of the governed. So, the question is: Who is best prepared to speak on the issue of what the American People will look like?
There are many who venture out from contentment and comfort to decry the darkening topography of a forest or watershed. And others will decry the changing color of the sky as a threat to our future climate and environment. Who then shall discuss the face of America?
Orson Wells pleaded on his death-bed: Don't let them colorize my movies. It is not proceeding from secret conspirators lucking in alleys, concocting poisons or armed in cellars, but from the heartbeat of America saying with equal vigor: "Don't let them colorize our country."
Your countenance spoke for you. The whole world knew that your hands that held the signs: "Hosea, Go Home" were the hands that cultivated this ground and transformed forests into fields; your bright eyes that saw the vision of a new America reflected the glow from fireside flames in the crude homes you built where once there were neither churches nor schools.
For you are the modern-day pioneers.
Yes, the world saw a resurgence of the transcendent people who domesticated horses, sheep and cattle, invented looms and wheels and taught the same language first spoken on the face of the moon. Your features were not new, for they have been chiseled in stone and wrought with light and shade from the facade of the Parthenon to the rotunda of the Jefferson Memorial. The fists you raised have been raised before, as well: at Thermopylae against the Persians, at Tours against the Moors and at Valley Forge against the King.
You are the philosophers and thinkers, who taught us to search for truth and to love liberty. From your lineage comes the astronomers who unlocked the secrets of the heavens, the physicians who have laid the hand of healing on the brow of pain and the inventors who gave us movable type, tall ships, railways, telephones, great engines of iron and tall edifices of steel.
For you are the poets of the New Dawn.
You are the industrious men, the loving mothers, the patriotic citizens, the useful students: the benefactors of all Mankind. And, above all, you have been honest enough to express your sincere thoughts, at a time when veracity is like a vagabond in rags begging for whatever pittance he can.
For you are the apostles of a New Creed.
It must have been strong instinct that made you act so quickly to thrust your images where courthouse officials did not want you, where the mayor would call you "trash" and the governor would call you "subhuman." But you acted as did Francis Drake, striking out to counter the Armada, knowing that if the day were lost, then Forsyth County would, today, indeed have looked like but another appendage of oozing, putrefied Atlanta.
If Forsyth County failed, then the last battle for the countenance of the True America would have been lost. But, on the other hand, if Forsyth County gained the victory, future generations would have a chance for freedom and happiness.
For ten years officials have tried to cover their ears to what you've had to say, but Forsyth County could not be silenced because its people, especially its youth, stood for truth and justice. Truth: that rule of the people is better than governance by the Bi-Racial Committee. Justice: that rule by the majority is better than rule by the minority.
They never answered your simple plea, which you put forward not just for yourselves, but for all America, in behalf of voting, open elections, democracy and majority-rule. When you pointed out that civil rights acts that create favors for the few create injustice for the many, they shouted back: go away, you are blocking traffic. When you petitioned to abolish the Bi-Racial Committee, they kicked you out of your own courthouse where the committee was meeting.
Was it because your clothes were too threadbare? Your words too rude? Or your countenance too light?
No matter. When they have faded forever from the consciousness of men, your record as freedom-fighters will endure. You have turned the weeds of doubt into the scented flowers of patriotism.
The Bi-Racial Committee was a Frankenstein-like concoction to begin with of mismatched, misbegotten body parts, stitched together by fiendish ghouls into which neither man nor magic could breathe any life whatsoever. Let there be piled into its unmarked grave all the rest of the bodies and committees, edicts and bills, that have forced children from their classrooms, neighbors from their homes, judges from their benches, workers from their jobs and voters from their polls in the name of affirmative action, quotas and preferences for minorities.
For there are new voices in the land, a new spirit in the country, and a hallowed birthplace of the New America: Forsyth County, Georgia.
So glorious and shining is this Grail that some fear to touch or even gaze upon it. But to drink from the chalice of Nationalism is to free the tongue from the restraints of hypocrisy, not as one drunk with spirits, but as one heady with wisdom and logic.
It is telling that not one official, editor or lawyer stepped forward to march or stand with you. Your modesty would not permit you to extol your own virtues, but you took on every loutish loudmouth who tried to gag you - humbly, faithfully. Meeting in a chicken house. In homes. Petitioning. Writing letters. Printing handbills.
You couldn't afford the gigantic "Welcome Hosea" signs your foes strung across the roadway. Others with less fortitude might have lost faith, but you did not.
You and you alone defeated the mayor, the commissioners, the editors, the lawyers, the bankers, the naysayers and the fault-finders in the Supreme Court: which is why no critic could sensibly deny your right to name your march today: The Marching Majority Parade.
But hold on. That same court, now even heavier-laden with minorities, has joined, even now, the forces that would ban you from this square, from these streets. So you have taken your plea for freedom, nationality and justice to a higher court: the American People. The court of last resort.
By defying the Supreme Court today with your presence here and ignoring the ban against you now and at anytime, you are saying: "Freedom is not the gift of a judge or an allowance from officials. Freedom proceeds from facing down tyranny, taking the streets and winning the hearts of the American People."
Reporters will be scurrying around seeking some great phrase spoken here, but they would do better to record what your presence, alone, says here today, that "There shall be an America for the American People."