A teaching opportunity was missed by the Tribune-Herald in its story on the Sam Davis Youth Camp [“Camp teaches different history,” June 21]. I appreciate the paper, however, giving me a chance to articulate my own take on this Sons of Confederate Veterans camp.

As for the war being waged over slavery, campers learned the war had multiple causes, that while agitation over the economic institution of slavery contributed to the secession of the lower South, it took an impending invasion of the South to start an unnecessary war that destroyed a region and killed more than 600,000.

Campers are taught from a Christian perspective. Our youth are often denied this in school.

Camp counselors Morgan Huffines (left), of Abilene, and Norm Farnum of Missouri attend the Confederate camp near Clifton.
Rod Aydelotte/Waco Tribune-Herald

Finally, campers sang hymns, learned 19th-century dancing, civility, etiquette and modesty — a part of our culture often ignored in modern curriculums.

When the Tribune-Herald reporter arrived, I was actually teaching a class on genealogy — hardly a “different history” topic.

It’s unfortunate the Tribune-Herald accepted information from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which in the past has churned out information on the Sons of Confederate Veterans that is false or deliberately misleading. Few if any at the SPLC have a background in Civil War history, and no one from the SPLC has ever attended our camps. Believing that the SPLC has a credible opinion on our camp curriculum is only a little sillier than believing the SPLC is an objective research institution.

The SPLC does have a great interest in demonizing me, partly because of my past work as an attorney suggesting government overkill in the Branch Davidian tragedy. My Christian/constitutional views are at variance with the SPLC’s Marxist vision for America. I’m honored they consider me an opponent.

But let me assure your readers that the SPLC is wrong in its comment that I am a “darling of the neo-Confederate world” because I represented “white supremacists.” Although I’m proud of my record of defending liberty, the mainstream people of the Confederate community support me in spite of my controversial client associations.

The SPLC further armed the Tribune-Herald with the fact of my “infamous” marriage 20 years ago (to the daughter of a top Aryan Nations official). Infamous to whom? The SPLC, which uses guilt by association to scare people from judging me by my own words and acts?

The children of that “infamous” marriage were all at the camp. Your reporter talked with two of them. Did my children fit the SPLC’s stereotype for “infamous” marriages? Or were they just kids enjoying camp? 

The SPLC is right that we do praise Confederate leaders. Robert E. Lee is the Christian model for all our young campers. As are Stonewall and Julia Jackson, Jefferson Davis, Sam Davis, Phoebe Pember, Holt Collier, Rose O’Neal Greenhow and a host of other Southern heroes and heroines who deserve to be studied and emulated. For the SPLC to be outraged by this demonstrates they’re the ones out of step with Texans, not the faculty and campers of the Sam Davis Youth Camp.

I recommend y’all redo the story and do your own research. We’ll be back in Clifton next year.

Kirk D. Lyons is a 33-year member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, a Texas attorney and chief trial counsel for the Southern Legal Resource Center Inc., a nonprofit legal advocacy group for the Confederate community.

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