At the fourteenth annual (with the exception of a couple cancellations) AmRen conference, James Edwards of The Political Cesspool gave a speech about his rise as a white nationalist talk show host. He also lamented the removal of Confederate flags and monuments following the bloodbath in Charleston at the hands of white supremacist Dylann Roof — what Edwards called an “anti-Southern hysteria.”

Following the massacre at Mother Emmanuel, Edwards said, “everybody was looking for a Confederate flag or a monument to blame for it.” This included the memorial to Nathan Bedford Forrest, an early leader of the Ku Klux Klan who presided over the slaughter of hundreds of black soldiers at Fort Pillow, which “a few white-hating zealots” wanted to remove.

Referring to Forrest as an “American hero,” Edwards bragged that he was able to “organize a rally that drew five hundred people in less than a week’s time” to protest this “desecration.”

Edwards also blasted the media for labeling him as “pro-slavery.” This label originated, in Edwards’ telling, from him having shared a 2008 op-ed in the Jamaican Observer that claimed slavery changed blacks “for the better.”

While I cannot find the original article, a Google search will show it referenced favorably on other white supremacist websites including Stormfront. At any rate, Edwards took offense to being called “pro-slavery” for approvingly sharing an article that, at a minimum, attempted to justify or excuse hereditary chattel slavery.

“Now, it’s clear that no one fancies slavery, and no one wants to resuscitate the practice,” Edwards said, adding that it was “bad for everyone” and “certainly bad for whites.” In what way the enslavement and torture of black slaves was bad for whites, Edwards didn’t elaborate upon.