14th Annual National Conference

5 & 6 October 2007
in Chattanooga, Tennessee

Falling on the heels of the Second North American Secession Convention, the League of the South held its 14th annual National Conference on 5 & 6 October 2007, at the Chattanooga Convention Center. A media frenzy surrounded the Secession Convention because of its co-sponsorship by the liberal Middlebury Institute of New York and the conservative League of the South. A common comment from interviewers was, "But you people are supposed to hate each other." The idea of finding common ground in our mutual desire to depart the Empire was not in the comprehension of the talking heads.

The theme of the League's conference was-- "Southern Secession: Antidote to Empire and Tyranny." Speakers included Dr. Thomas Fleming (keynote), Kirkpatrick Sale, Rev. Franklin Sanders, Walter D. "Donnie" Kennedy,
Rev. Eugene Case, John Chodes and Dr. Michael Hill.

 

Thomas Fleming is the editor of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture and president of The Rockford Institute.
     He received his PhD. In the Classics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with a specialty in ancient Greek lyric poetry.

     He was a founding member and former board member of the League, as well as an affiliated scholar with the League’s Institute.

     In 1979, he was the founding editor of the Southern Partisan magazine.

 

Kirkpatrick Sale is a critic of technology and a self-proclaimed “neo-Luddite.” He is the author of twelve books, including Christopher Columbus and the Conquest of Paradise, Human Scale, The Fire of His Genius: Robert Fulton and the American Dream, and most recently After Eden: The Evolution of Human Domination.
      In 2004, working with members of the Second Vermont Republic, he formed the Vermont based Middlebury Institute. Established “for the study of separatism, secession, and self-determination,” he is the Institute’s Director.
     In November 2006, the Middlebury Institute sponsored the First North American Secessionist Convention which attracted forty participants from sixteen secessionist organizations.

Dr. Michael Hill, President of the League of the South.
The author of several books and articles on Celtic history, Michael earned his Ph.D. in history from the University of Alabama in 1985. He taught history at both the University of Alabama and at Stillman College in Tuscaloosa from 1978 to 1999.
     Dr. Hill was a founding member of the League of the South in 1994. He was elected President of the League at that time and has served in that capacity since.
     Married to wife Sara for thirty-two years, they reside in Killen, Alabama and boast three daughters and two sons-in-law. They are members of Christ Our Hope Reformed Episcopal Church near Westpoint, Tennessee.

  

Walter Donald Kennedy is a history enthusiast as well as a fervent advocate of individual freedom.

     He has made a special study of the social and political impact of the War for Southern Independence and its continuing repercussions.

     A recipient of the Distinguished Service Medal of the National Sons of Confederate Veterans, Kennedy has explained his views on numerous radio and television talk shows, including the Oliver North Show and Politically Incorrect.

     Kennedy is the author of Myths of American Slavery and coauthor, with his twin, James Ronald Kennedy, of The South Was Right!, which is in its tenth printing and has sold almost 100,000 copies. The Kennedy brothers’ other books, Was Jefferson Davis Right? and Why Not Freedom! America’s Revolt Against Big Government, are also published by Pelican.

     An Exploratory Committee has been established for Kennedy’s possible run for the Presidential nomination in the Republican party.
 

Rev. Eugene Case has been pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Woodville, Mississippi, and of the Bethany Presbyterian Church since 1974. He has served various positions in the local presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America.

     Holder of a Bachelor of Arts degree from Morehead State University, Morehead, Kentucky, Rev. Case attended Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan and received his Master of Divinity degree from reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi.

     He married in 1997, at age 49. Gene and wife Rachel have five children aged eight, seven, six, four and two.

 

A New Yorker, John Chodes has had twenty articles published related to the War for Southern Independence and to Reconstruction. In addition, three of the League of the South “Papers” series are by his authorship: “The Paradox of Jabez Curry: State Sovereignty to Federalized School” (which led to a full-length biography of Mr. Curry, published by Algora Press); “The Constitution and State Sovereignty,” a condensation of Jefferson Davis’ classic “The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government,” and “The Union League: Washington’s Klan,” which describes how this federal agency surpassed the Ku Klux Klan in brutality to former slaves during Reconstruction.

     Seven plays by Mr. Chodes have been produced Off-Broadway, in New York City.

     His non-fiction books include “Bruce Jenner” (a biography of the Olympic decathlon gold-medallist) and the award-winning “Corbitt,” a biography of Ted Corbitt, the first African-American to compete in an Olympic marathon and who was Mr. Chodes’ coach and mentor. This book led Chodes to become the technical advisor to Dustin Hoffman in the film, “Marathon Man.”

     Mr. Chodes has also written extensively on the same subjects that animated the Old South: free trade, privatization, home rule, with over 100 articles, TV editorial replies and book chapters.

 

Franklin Sanders has been called “the most dangerous man in the South.” Why? Because he asks the hard questions and finds the honest answers.

     He attended graduate school in German at Tulane University, then received a full scholarship to the Free University in West Berlin, where he saw first hand what unchallenged state power could do. The West was pulsing with life and light, the East dead and empty.

     In 1980 he opened his own business selling physical gold and silver. The agents of the Empire were not happy. They began a series of investigations which resulted in indictments, acquittals, convictions and appeals.

     Today he and wife Susan live at “the Shoe” in Dogwood Mudhole, Tennessee surrounded by children and grandchildren. He continues to sell physical gold and silver, as well as being a proponent of agrarianism.