Sign the Petition

H.K. Edgerton

Equal Protection Legislation

Addressed to the United States Congress and state legislatures

We, the undersigned, ask the United States Congress and state legislatures to support the H.K. Edgerton Equal Protection Initiative and enact legislation protecting CSA-Americans from discrimination based on ancestry or lawful heritage association, protecting lawful expression, and safeguarding Confederate graves and qualifying memorials.

Americans do not inherit legal guilt for the acts, laws, institutions, or beliefs associated with an ancestor’s place and time. CSA-Americans include United States citizens and nationals descended from people who lived in a state while it formed part of the Confederacy, or served in Confederate military or naval forces, regardless of their place of residence. This includes ancestors of every race and ethnicity, free people and slaves, civilians and military personnel, men and women.

Protect equal treatment. Support legislation and policies addressing discrimination based on Confederate ancestry, and ensure that government decisions about public services, employment, education, and generally available benefits respect equal protection and applicable civil rights.

Protect lawful expression. Safeguard peaceful speech, association, assembly, historical education, and commemoration concerning Confederate heritage under the same standards applied to comparable expression.

Protect graves and historical resources. Protect Confederate graves, cemeteries, human remains, markers, and funerary objects from desecration, unauthorized disturbance, theft, and unlawful trafficking. Include identified and unidentified dead and marked, unmarked, individual, and mass graves. Require public notice, comment, consideration of preservation alternatives, and written decisions before nonemergency removal or alteration of qualifying public memorials.

Hear and review the evidence. Give the Initiative’s proposals and verified evidence a fair legislative hearing. Establish accessible complaint procedures, protection against retaliation, and timely remedies when people or irreplaceable historical resources face unlawful harm.

We oppose discrimination in all its forms and affirm equal rights for all Americans. These protections should preserve truthful historical study and debate, respect private property and tribal rights, and operate within federal and state constitutional authority.

By signing, I support these goals and legislative action to advance them. Final bill wording remains under review by the Initiative’s board and legal counsel. A person need not have Confederate ancestry to sign.