God'll Cut You Down (14 page)

“This is the flag of Mississippi,” Richard tells me, “recognized as a Confederate flag. It’s a flashpoint for patriotism and Americanism because of the people who opposed it in a vote in 2001—the Communist Party, the Black Caucus, and the homosexuals.”

Opposed by homosexuals!
Giant John writes on his yellow notepad.

“When I was young in Australia I used to wear a T-shirt with the Confederate flag on it.”

“Really?” he says happily. “This flag was worn when they tore the Berlin Wall down. It was flown in Vilnius when they kicked the Soviets out. It has a freedom spirit all over the world.”

“Do skinheads have that spirit?” I ask Richard. (
Are there going to be skinheads at this banquet or not, goddamn it!
)

“They do have that spirit,” he says. “We have a camp for them.”

“You have a camp for skinheads?” I say, my lisp so happy, it sounds like a tweet.

“I don’t want to get into it today, because this is not that day, but come in October and we’ll have you around. Where the car was yesterday.”

He means his Nationalist Movement office in Learned. Christ. Even
that
he can’t just say straight out. But maybe if you’d been followed by the FBI for forty-five years, you’d become a little evasive, too.

“What would I learn in skinhead camp?” I ask.

“Well, I don’t want to distract from the Spirit of America, which is today, but we have twenty acres out in the country and we have target practice, legal practice, education, physical training.”

“Whites only?”

“Red, white, and blue.”

Richard mounts the flagpole in the flag stand.

“I want to make plain we don’t want to secede from America,” Richard says. “Or fight the Civil War again.”

This sounds to the untrained ear as if Richard is being moderate.
He doesn’t want to secede! What a guy!
But to a Race Trekkie, this sounds like Richard being a rat fink. Most Southern white supremacists
do
want to split from America. To them the Civil War was an invasion, and they would love to fight it again. This is why Jim Giles has Richard marked down forever as a New Yorker, a Northerner, a Yankee. But I still don’t really get it—it sounds as though Richard wants to avoid trouble. What sort of white supremacist wants to avoid trouble?

People dribble in to the park and stand about the amphitheater. What I first think is the start of a crowd is actually the end of the crowd. The five high school boys chosen as Spirit of America Day honorees pick at their ears and noses, with mums, dads, and aunts by their sides. Everyone looks a little thrown. Are there even twenty people here?

Two beauty queens touch up their hair by the side of the amphitheater. Kimberly, a Miss Hattiesburg Outstanding Teen, looks bitter at the shitty turnout. She’ll be singing the national anthem. Richard offers her a megaphone. She winces and pushes it away. This crowd will be able to hear her without that.

Just when I’ve given up hope of skinheads, I see him. A tubby shorn-haired boy with a Confederate tie, one of the five honorees.

I shuffle over to the boy’s mum.

“I really don’t know how my son was nominated,” the pink and cheery woman says, “but we got stuff in the mail.”

“So you’re friends with Richard?” I ask.

“No,” she says. “This is the first time I’ve met with him.”

I try the boy himself.

“Not sure what I’m getting this award for,” he says. “This is the first time I’ve been nominated. I don’t really know what it is.”

“You friends with Richard?” I ask.

“No.”

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a “skinhead” is just some guy who went to the barber and asked for a number two.

I nose about the crowd. I can’t find one person who knew Richard before today. Not one parent clued in that he runs the Nationalist Movement. All the boys just got something in the mail and are flattered to have won a sports award.

Richard’s bony fingers hand out Confederate flags to the parents.

“They said we couldn’t bring these flags along to the football games.” He laughs. “Not allowed to bring sticks into the stadium!” He’s selling these folks a “safety bylaws gone mad” story, while it’s really a “racially charged Confederate flag” story. I bunch up with the families and look
up at Richard. He’s standing behind the podium, giving a speech about how “new” isn’t always “new and improved.” It means one thing if you don’t know he’s a white supremacist, and another if you do. Then, as I stand there, it whacks me in the head what Richard has done. He’s constructed a fantasy-reality: He’s the charismatic leader hammering out a political speech from behind a podium to a crowd waving flags. Everyone else thinks they’re at a high school sports award ceremony hosted by an eccentric.

The beauty queen sings a sour “Star-Spangled Banner.”

Richard tells us it’s time to march to City Hall to plant a flag.

The Sovereignty Commission

SCR ID # 6-72-3-22-1-1-1 (July 27, 1971)

RICHARD ANTHONY BARRETT first came to our attention as the result of a full-page article in a newspaper. With the article was a picture of Richard Barrett with his college diploma under his arm, going in to return same to the president of Rutgers University, New Jersey. This act was prompted by the fact that Barrett disagreed with the communistic leanings of one of the faculty members. Barrett made this return of his diploma into quite a publicity stunt.

Barrett has appeared in many high schools, mostly rural, his theme being “Victory in Vietnam, Victory over Communism, and Victory under God.” In his speeches he usually addresses and puts emphasis on male students who are members of the local high school football team. He usually asks for contributions from the students to help finance his cause. He has upset parents of the students as a result.

Typical of Barrett’s activities was an incident when he attempted to take a patient from the Veterans Administration Hospital, Jackson, a wounded Vietnam veteran who had lost both legs, and transport him to Washington, DC, to exploit him in some type of racial or Vietnam demonstration.

Barrett is constantly attempting to organize the young people in Mississippi. A source commented that Barrett appeared to be operating in the same manner as Hitler operated in Germany prior to World War II. It was this person’s sincere belief that Barrett is a Nazi.

Richard Barrett’s “America’s Victory Force” sponsored a banquet in Arlington, Virginia. It was highly publicized with the fact that both speakers would be members of Congress. After some $6,000 worth of tickets were sold, neither speaker appeared. There were many questions as to where that money went.

The latest venture of Barrett’s part was the organization of “The Spirit of America Day.”

Barrett had drawn up a scheme whereby he had made Mississippian football player Archie Manning the Honorary Chairman. His name was printed on “Spirit of America Day” official stationery. This was to gain as much as possible from the publicity, a very routine procedure followed by Barrett. He used identical tactics in setting up “America’s Victory Force,” placing names of prominent generals, admirals, and other top-ranking officers on the stationery.

Barrett does an excellent job of getting around where prominent people are congregated, and having a friend take a picture which reflects him being a part of the gathering. He is spoken of as a first-class con artist and he takes care of himself in fine fashion. He is fantastic on getting newspaper publicity.

We thread through the Greek columns fronting the building and pass a plaque:
BUILT 1846–47 BY SLAVE LABOR, OF HAND
MADE BRICK. USED AS H
OSPITAL FOR BOTH UNI
ON AND CONFEDERATE S
OLDIERS DURING WAR B
ETWEEN THE STATES.

After winning the demographic war in Jackson, black officials removed the Mississippi Confederate flag from City Hall. Every year Richard marches on City Hall and replants the flag.

Richard has presented this flag ceremony to the families as a genial part of the Spirit of America Day, as recognition of the day by City Hall. But it’s nothing of the sort. It’s in fact civil disobedience
against
City Hall.

Richard drifts in with his dupes. It’s a risk. What if the City Hall folk kick up a fuss? What will he tell the families?

Richard makes no eye contact with the four black security guards, three with bodies so wide, they slosh when they walk. Awkward energy glitches through the air. The guards know what’s going on, but for some reason no fuss is made—maybe they’ve decided it’s easier just to let him do his thing once a year. A female guard ushers Richard through to a mahogany and leather room that looks like a courtroom. She asks if he wants the air-conditioning on. She has concern in her eyes for one of four reasons, and I can’t tell which:

1. She’s a black woman nervous of a white supremacist.

2. She’s nervous because she thinks he’s mentally ill. (I’m serious.)

3. She sees an old, frail man and is being slightly maternal/respectful.

4. She’s determined to do her job right in these weird circumstances.

I’m the last into the room after all the families.

The shield of the City of Jackson hangs over three leather chairs. Seated there, like aristocrats, are Richard Barrett, Vince Thornton, and Kimberly, the beauty queen. The US flag is planted in a gold flag stand next to them.

I join the families sitting on pews facing the three while Richard reads out a letter of well-wishes from the governor of Tennessee. It sounds
generic even for a form letter.
Please accept my personal best wishes for all of your future endeavors.

A silver beard tickles my shoulder. One of the boys’ fathers has leaned forward. He asks me if I know who this guy Richard is. He’s never heard of him, but he’s already picking up that he’s a bit odd. I still have a prank to do, so I feign naiveté.

Richard has left his leather chair and is lurching over the five boys in the front pew.

“The city here has taken down the Mississippi flag,” he whispers. “And one of the parts of our ceremony is to put it back. So is there one of you who would like to bring the flag here?”

“Okay,” says one of the boys, a peach-fuzzed Justin. Richard ushers Justin from the room.

Vince Thornton stands from his leather chair and raises his hand. He asks us to raise our hands and repeat after him.

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of Mississippi and the sovereign state for which it stands, with pride in her history and achievements, and with confidence in her future, and under the guidance of Almighty God.”

Richard ushers Justin back into the room. He marches an awkward march with the state Confederate flag, as if he’s been pushed into an improv theater game. Justin plants the flag in the gold flag stand alongside the Stars and Stripes. Richard takes photos with his Japanese camera. Justin’s photo will be printed up in Richard’s newsletter and posted on his website. Justin will be the face of the white race fighting back against the black race.

Outside I ask Justin why the City of Jackson removed the flag in the first place.

“I really don’t know,” he says. “Mr. Barrett might know.”

This is two-way theater. The families think Richard has the support of City Hall; City Hall thinks Richard has the support of the families. Everyone’s both an audience member and an unwitting actor in Richard’s play. (This year is extra-meta. Everyone, including Richard, is also
an unwitting actor in
my
play. And the crew and I are actors in Richard’s, too, making him look newsworthy in the eyes of the families. This is a race war written by Charlie Kaufman.)

And it won’t end when the day ends. The security guards will no doubt tell their black friends that a bunch of white supremacists marched on City Hall this week.

Kimberly is smiling at Richard’s camera.

“Why’d Jackson get rid of the flag?” I ask, all faux-naive.

Kimberly’s antennas go up. She twigs straightaway.

“There were different . . . racial issues.” She rubs her nose on the word
racial
.

“It just looks like a normal flag with normal colors,” I say.

“They said it represented slavery so they wanted it gone,” Kimberly says. “I don’t feel it represents slavery or says that Mississippi is a racist state. I just think it’s our flag and I am proud of it.”

Within minutes Kimberly’s mother has cornered my producer: “I want to know what you’re doing! I want to know what this is for!”

So not every white Mississippian was naive that day.

LETTER FROM LAWYERS FOR ARCHIE MANNING

Law Offices of Lyon, Crosthwait & Terney

100 Court Street

Indianola, Mississippi 38751

March 18, 1971

Mr. Richard Barrett

P. O. Box 3333

Jackson, Mississippi 39207

Dear Mr. Barrett,

I have recently learned that your foundation is listing Archie Manning on its board of trustees as honorary chairman. It is my
understanding that Archie has not consented to the use of his name and serving on the board of trustees as honorary chairman.

Therefore, as his attorney and at his request, I would appreciate your removing his name as honorary chairman and from your board, and refraining from the use of his name in connection with your foundation.

Thank you.
Very truly yours,

Frank O. Crosthwait, Jr.
Lyon, Crosthwait & Terney

Giant John spools the footage forward.

Richard has taken us to the House of Representatives. A politician with golden hair has just introduced a resolution commending the Spirit of America Day and its honorees. The politicians look up to the public gallery and applaud. The boys and their mums and dads look down, cheeks turning pink. One mother smudges off a teardrop of pride.

Richard’s out of sight. He drifts in a circle outside the doors of the public gallery with a dizzy smile, consumed in his fantasy. He’ll
just
get away with this if he doesn’t show his face to the legislators. Showing his face may tip the black legislators over the edge. They might bellow and point their fingers at the public gallery. They might shout words like
white supremacist
and make a scene that will be hard to explain to the families. A new side of Richard the double-dealer: He’s attracted to risk.