Thanks from Maurice Bessinger

Dear Friends,

It is now 3:30 am and as most morning go these last four months, I awoke and immediately started thinking of things I must do today. For the first time in several months I have a little time to do something I've wanted to do for quite some time, which is thank you for the personal help and support you have shown me, my family and my business.

Also, I feel that I must apologize for not answering all the phone calls, emails and letters of support written to me and to others on my behalf. The simple truth is that both my staff and I have been overwhelmed with the problems that have beset us. Those day-to-day pressures, plus the sheer volume of mail we have received, have caused us to not know exactly how to respond.

Over the last months we have received over 6,000 emails and letters and uncounted thousands of telephone calls. Most of those came in the first few weeks and my small office staff is simply not capable of responding to that sort of volume. Since we couldn't answer them all we put these messages aside to be answered at a later date. We still have them categorized (in boxes) and I hope to answer them all at some point when we have additional staff that can do so. There were, by the way, only about 50 negative emails compared to the 6,000 + positive messages.

As I say, thank you all from the bottom of my heart. Those messages of support meant so much to me and to my fellow employees especially when we were being maligned in all the major media, our stores were being vandalized and we were being personally threatened by various thugs.

Please accept this mass mail-out to all our supporters and hopefully someday I can thank each and every one of you dear friends personally.

Our battle began soon after I raised our Confederate flag on July 1st for the first time at my headquarters restaurant here in West Columbia. I knew before I did it that the stand I was staking might affect my life, my family and my business, but I did it because I felt it needed to be done. After the defeat we sustained in the South Carolina Legislature when the Confederate flag was removed, I had hoped my individual show of Southern pride might be the beginning of a resurgence of individual pride for all Southerners.

Shortly thereafter I also raised the South Carolina flag to its proper place of sovereignty and asked our legislators to reconsider the historical fact that our states are sovereign over the federal government and not the other way around. My call to consider the proper place of the now massive federal government was the act that started all the trouble.

A scurrilous newspaper article was then written and published in the largest newspaper in the state. That article completely ignored my constitutional arguments but it introduced the incendiary topics of race and slavery. That article, concentrating on issues I had not raised, caused the firefight that followed.

To make a long story short, the last four months have been a reign of terror in my life. We are in a battle for survival for our people, our business, and also for our lives. The major print news media has done a poor job of reporting what has happened to us, but that, unfortunately, is now to be expected. The electronic media has done a better job, but that has been too little to really effect our situation.

What has not been reported is a situation that I will now tell you about. There is a reign of terror that is going on, has gone on, and continues to go on, against both me and against all the grocery stores that discontinued my products.

The Wal-Mart and the SAM'S Club stores that first pulled my products could have quietly taken my products off their shelves if they didn't want to sell it but they chose to make a public issue of it. They issued press releases to the media and proceeded to tell their customers lies about my products saying that there had been a "product recall" as if something was wrong with my products.

When the Wal-Mart story first broke some of the other chains tried to resist this onslaught of political correctness but they were hit by this reign of terror from militants whom, I believe, are being orchestrated by various black action groups. What these militants do is enter the stores, loosen the caps on my sauce and pour the contents on the shelves and floor. In some cases they have broken the bottles. This has been a frequent occurrence.

There have also been bomb threats against some stores. Plus, the lives of some store managers and top officials of grocery chains have been threatened. I, of course, have documented the threats on my life and that of my family. None of this has been reported by any of the media despite the fact that they could have easily found out with a little investigative journalism. What most of the reporters in the major media wanted to do, however, was incite this sort of action rather than report it.

This is what America has come to when thugs are both egged on and supported by the media.

To say the least this has all been a shock to me. I have no choice now but to strengthen my resolve and be ever vigilant. I will not be frightened from our course now. This is a fight against the evil forces of Satan and we have to be strong. I have asked God to give me the strength to preservere and endure this fight for freedom and liberty.

Again, I want to thank you for your past support and I ask for your continued support. I also ask that you pray for me and my family and my employees. Please remember that God is on our side and we will win in the end.

Your fellow patriot and brother in Christ,

Maurice