Bridging Selma
Apr 28, 2015 | Stories
Bill Harris and Barbara Marthall H.K. Edgerton, embraces the pre-war south, at a ceremony honoring Confederate soldiers. “I’m a racist…but what we are not is bigots,,” said Gary Johnson Bill Harris and Barbara Marthal stand out in a crowd. Especially the crowd at the 150th Anniversary Battle of Selma reenactment. It’s not just because they’re an interracial couple, even though in the middle of two-thousand costumed, gun-toting Union and Confederate soldiers, they’re worth a second glance. It’s not even because Marthal, a black woman, tends to show up in full period dress— embroidered straw hat and hoop skirt included. Self-proclaimed historians, Harris and Marthal go to Civil War reenactments all summer long hoping to catch an eye or an ear to tell their truth—the truth of black Confederate soldiers. Marthal is the author of a children’s book Fighting for Freedom: A Documented Story, which she wrote hoping it would supplement public school history lessons on the Civil War. “Fighting for Freedom” is the true story of Richard T. Davis, a young Confederate soldier and his slave—and friend—Handy Davis Crudup. The surprising story of their long-lasting friendship, despite their roles as slave and master, is accompanied by historical documents. These are important and neglected stories, they say, and there are many like them out there. Marthal recommends that black people look up H.K. Edgerton, a black proponent of a view of Civil War history who argues that the Confederate army was made up of both African-American and white volunteers. Edgerton is the former president of the Asheville, North Carolina chapter of the NAACP. In 1998, he was suspended from the...
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