Allen Armentrout, part 3: Humility and hope

One year ago today, Allen Armentrout took a rebel stand in Charlottesville, Virginia (see part 1). The world deemed his peaceful and principled actions as racist and traitorous. Like cultural-Marxist clockwork, the politically correct ramifications (see part 2) immediately began unfolding for the unReconstructed Southerner.

“Sad thoughts … are necessary and good for us. They cause us to reflect. Do not yield to them, but use them as a medium through which to view life correctly.”
— Robert E. Lee

Armentrout knew he couldn’t overcome these trials and tribulations by himself. So he leaned on the cornerstone of his life: Jesus Christ.

“What got me through it all, honestly, was I knew what I had done was the light of the Lord,” the 22-year-old said during our recent two-hour chat. “If God has a will for our life, we better do it.”

“In the end, God’s got a bigger plan and something way better for us. And if we don’t receive rewards or blessings … in this life, we will in the next.” Wise words from such a young man.

The rebel remnant

God’s favors did begin to manifest for Armentrout in the here and now. He experienced an outpouring of support, monetary and otherwise, from a slew of Southern-without-apology compatriots and even a few Northerners.

One of his favorite correspondence (as well as a generous donation to his college fund) came from a lawyer in New York City. “Good job, young man,” the letter read. “Even though I’m a Yankee, I respect your integrity and your character.”

The tremendous encouragement of like-minded folks who dare to oppose the cultural genocide was a feeling reminiscent to his days flagging overpasses in Pensacola, said Armentrout. Sure, there were always a few loud and belligerent people, who castigated him from their sense of self-appointed moral superiority.

“But at the same time, you’ve probably got four or five as many people going under the bridge, giving you salutes and thumbs up and honking their horns,” he recalled of his early activist days. “I’m telling you, it makes you feel free.”

He also got the backing of numerous SCV camps, received an award from the Military Order of the Stars and Bars, and was flown around the country for pro-Southern speaking engagements. The accolades were greatly appreciated and spurred in him hope for the Southern cause.

To defy the status quo is a rarity these days. But to do so in such a gallant and solitary way is almost unheard of. It struck a nerve with Southerners and non-leftists of all stripes. People who said, “It’s about damn time somebody stood up!”

Armentrout’s act of allegiance to ancestry, real history, and patriotic principles was even immortalized in a music video and his image made into pop art (as seen above). “I’m very thankful there’s a remnant of people still left that respect the old-time way,” he said humbly.

From Russia with love

Armentrout’s blessings continued when he was contacted on Instagram by a woman from Moscow, Russia. “’You’re a hero,’ she wrote. ‘You’re a celebrity in Russia.'”

At first, he was distrustful and thought the message was some sort of publicity stunt. But as it turned out, she worked for the largest non-government-controlled media in Russia, Armentrout told me, and this free-press news channel wanted to interview him.

“For an American to actively stand up against the liberal movement and to experience what I experienced, to them, I’m a folk hero,” Armentrout commented. “I don’t consider myself a hero … but that’s how they saw me.”

So, he prayed about it and finally agreed to the offer. A Los Angeles correspondent and news team from Moscow flew into North Carolina, and Armentrout met them at a park near his house.

He specifically chose a public meeting place. “Last thing I want to do is get abducted, thrown into a van, and wake up in Russia somewhere,” he remarked with a chuckle.

When The Last Patriot of America segment aired, “I had hundreds of people from [former] Eastern Bloc countries and Russia contact me, and telling me, ‘We’re proud of you. Russia backs you up!'”

“The consolidation of the states into one vast empire, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of ruin which has overwhelmed all that preceded it.”
— Robert E. Lee

”People who lived under communism know how precious freedom is and they see the leftist direction America is going,” Armentrout assessed. “They’re screaming … ‘Don’t give up your rights! Why are you giving in to these liberals? Why are you letting them take over this country? We’ve been there, done that. It doesn’t work!'”

Still today, some in the Russian press will refer to Armentrout as “one of the few traditionalists” left in America. Funny that the most honest assessment he got from any TV news network or newspaper came from people who once lived under Bolshevism.

“It showed me the condition of America,” he said matter-of-factly. “The truth in American journalism is just dying out. It’s all fake.”

Triumph over tragedy

Another happy point for Armentrout was that he and Pensacola State University came to an amicable agreement, and he eventually got accepted to a new school. All his college credits transferred, and he’ll be graduating in May 2019, just one year late and debt-free.

“Shake off those gloomy feelings. … Look upon things as they are. Take them as you find them. Make the best of them, turn them to your advantage.”
— Robert E. Lee

During the interim, Armentrout got a job with a tree company, which offered him a short-term but adventurous opportunity to work out in California with the sequoias. He also bought a house in North Carolina, which he’s now subleasing, so he could accept a career-advancing position out of state.

“The reason that good things happen in my life is because the Lord’s good to me,” Armentrout affirmed. “I don’t take a bit of credit for any of it. It’s all Him.”

He sees too how God used his seeming misfortune to open other doors. “I was able to witness to some people that the Lord put in my life through this ‘set back.’ I know that ultimately through my suffering … I was able to share the Gospel.”

When asked if he’d do Charlottesville all over again, Armentrout replied with an adamant “yes.” He’s simply not consumed by the rage and the debasement that so defines the leftist mob and their sinister “social justice.”

He holds no animus toward the people who screamed obscenities at him or lied about him. He’s not angry about the disruptions that were needlessly caused in his life. 

“As Southerners, we invest emotionally in what we do. When we believe, we put our heart and soul into it. When people attack us … it hurts,” Armentrout admitted. Yet this Southern son overcame. He perseveres by holding tight to his faith, praying for his enemies, and clinging to heritage.

“You can’t change history,” he said. “You can rewrite it. You can author it. You can brainwash millions of people, but it doesn’t change what actually happened. And people that stand up for the truth are always and will always be in the right.”

“Duty … is the sublimest word in the our language. Do your duty in all things … You cannot do more, and you should never do less.”
—Robert E. Lee

See, we unReconstructed folk understand that the Confederacy fought to preserve decentralization: an ideology, a way of life, a civilization-building, liberty-enhancing political, cultural, and societal belief system that took more than 500 years to develop and foster, improve upon and establish. A blessing of the boldest sort, but a delicate one no less.

That is at the heart of Dixie. It’s a heart for the small and local, the familial and the neighborly, the tried and traditional, the minimally governmental and exponentially private. Southerners understand perfectly well that the centralizers, meddlers, expansionists, and progressive enforcers seek the opposite. They always have.

After all, Southern rebels have been living under their iron thumb for 150 years; it is our coerced, ugly reality. And we don’t like what we see, nor do we like that we must subsidize our own demise.

So we resist this “progress” in any way that we can, but we need to do it more. Unafraid and unapologetically. Just like Armentrout did. And just like so many before us have done.

“I’m a Good Ol’ Rebel”

A part of this remnant was Maj. James Innes Randolph, who wrote “I’m a Good Ol’ Rebel” and also happened to be topographical engineer to General J.E.B. Stuart during the War of Northern Aggression. His poem evolved into a folk song and has since become an unReconstructed anthem, expressing poignantly both Southerners’ deadly War experiences and raw emotions post-War.

Author and historian Dr. Boyd D. Cathey recently penned three new verses “to reflect what has happened over the past 150 years and what we are facing today.” Above is the updated version as performed by Braden Harwood, Sons of Confederate Veterans member of the James-Younger Camp in Norwood, North Carolina.

Dr. Cathey concludes with the words “Victory, it is our goal and heaven is our fate.” But he has no illusions and admits that “we go to fight a large and vicious foe. Our chances are not great and that is what we know.”

But this isn’t a conflict of our own making. It is one for survival. It’s the mob who has chosen to ramp up their revolution. They aren’t interested in reconciliation. They want to dominate.

So our monuments and our past are on the chopping block, being sent wholesale to the “social justice” guillotines. “Off with their heads” till not another statue or Confederate remains, dead or alive.

Gotta purge Johnny Reb so the alt-Marxist metamorphosis can really take hold. His downfall is justified in order to obtain a new, better America. If only he would shut up or just go away.

Yet, he keeps on fighting. Head held high, faith abounding, and against the tide. It’s in his blood.

“How it will all end, I cannot say but will trust to a kind providence, who will, I believe, order all things for the best.”
— Robert E. Lee

History is filled with ordinary people who sometimes do extraordinary things. Individuals who are called because of time and place, because of circumstances beyond their control, to do fearless acts. To do what is right, no matter what.

Such is the story of Allen Armentrout – a Christian who lives in this world, but not of it. He’s not defined by it, and he’s certainly not going lose sight of Heaven because of it.

Instead, he stays focused and unremitting, and filled with humility and hope, like his hero Lee. Just like Christ called him to be. “Just be proud of God … and He can do the same thing in your life like he’s done in mine.” Indeed, what a way to view life correctly.