H.K Edgerton began a Sunday church service with a song.

“I wish I was in Dixie, Hooray! Hooray! In Dixie’s Land I’ll take my stand, to live and die in Dixie. Away, away, away down south in Dixie!”

Edgerton, a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, appeared at the Socastee Original Freewill Baptist Church in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina at the invitation of Pastor Darren Squires, Sr.

“As I watch Jesus Christ and the Christian bible under attack here in America there’s no greater motivation for me then to pick up the Christian cross of St. Andrew (Jesus Christ’s first disciple) and to share what I know. I just hope folks will listen,” Edgerton told the congregants, according to ABC 15.

He says many people don’t know the history of the Confederate flag.

“The spirit of my southern family is so low now. I’m coming here not only to bring a message, but to uplift their spirits. It’s very important to me. I wish half the church was filled with my black family, because they need to know,” according to Edgerton, the former president of the Asheville, North Carolina NAACP.

“It’s important to understand history, because if you understand history, you can make a lot of good decisions. I listened to folks who are against this flag, and they generally always start off with the same statement, KKK. The KKK is not the history of the South.”

Squires says he invited Edgerton to speak to his flock to teach them about the Confederate flag and its meaning.

“He brings a whole new side to it. I feel that we are the worst in my life time. I’m 43. In race, I have never been called a racist until I moved here, because of that flag,” he tells the news station.

His church has a Confederate battle flag on its sign and he refuses to remove it to be politically correct.

“I put the balloons and the flags to draw attention; negative and positive. I’m not going to bow down. We’ve been here long enough. We stand our ground in what we believe in,” Squires says.

“Most of the people who drive on the road will never come into church. I put scripture up that entices people to look to dig. I like it when they have to turn around and come back by.”