This check copy was provided by Robert Echols. The Scene has redacted any relevant routing numbers in gray. The front of the check, on the top portion of the image, shows a donation by Echols to Heritage Covenant School in the amount of $750. The back of the check, shown below, shows that Heritage Covenant school endorsed the amount over to the Kershaw Foundation. Echols provided six donation checks to the Scene made over three years to Heritage Covenant School, three of which were endorsed straight over to the foundation without Echols knowledge.
When reports surfaced last week that former federal judge and Nashville attorney Robert Echols had given money to a group with ties to the neo-Confederate movement, he said he had believed he was making donations to a Christian school led by a man Echols knew through a Bible study. And now he has come forward with evidence to support his claim.
Echols came to the Scene Wednesday morning with copies of checks made out to the Heritage Covenant School and bank documents showing that some of those checks had been endorsed over to the Mary Noel Kershaw Foundation. The Kershaw Foundation has ties to the League of the South, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled a hate group and which has ties to groups who participated in the recent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. Echols has maintained that he never knew the money he gave to the school was passed on to the foundation. He says he was part of a weekly Bible study with David Jones, who had solicited donations for the Christian school.
Heritage Covenant School, located in a storefront in Lobelville, is a homeschool organization. Jones was also a former state chairman for the League of the South, something Echols says Jones did not disclose to the group.
The League of the South describes itself as a "Southern Nationalist organization that the survival that seeks the well being, and independence of the Southern people." An frequently asked questions section of the group's website addresses whether it is a "racist" organization like this: “'Racist' is a slur used by anti-Whites. We are pro-South and pro-White."
Echols says he only knew Jones — who has since openly identified as a secessionist and said that "slavery was not as bad as what has been taught" — through the Bible study and that politics, much less issues related to race, didn't come up.
“He never spoke about being a secessionist or that he hated anybody or that he was involved in anyway with either one of these groups,” Echols tells the Scene. Echols describes the group as one that would pray for the concerns of friends and family members and then discuss books of the Bible. He says the Bible study included a couple of black members too and noted that he sponsored African American federal judge Waverly Crenshaw's membership into the predominantly white Belle Meade Country Club.
The donations were first reported by The Tennessean last week. A blog post, citing the daily's reporting, ran on Pith the following day and other local media outlets have reported on the story. News Channel 5 reported on other donors to the school who said they were unaware of Jones' connection to any hate groups. Now Echols is making the rounds, meeting with local media organizations trying to set the record straight.
As the founder of the Heritage Covenant School and a former League of the South leader with ties to the Kershaw Foundation, Jones was well-positioned to easily sign donations to the school over to the foundation. (The money, Jones says, came back to the school from the foundation in the form of grants.) What led to media reports about the Echols donations was the fact that, in tax filings, the foundation listed Echols as a donor, as opposed to the school. It is unclear whether this is an error in disclosure to the IRS by the foundation or by the school.
In his initial statement on the donations, Echols said he was "horrified by the actions of hate groups in Charlottesville, including the League of the South."
"When I made the contributions, at the request of my Bible study leader, I believed that I was making donations to a Christian school and that my financial support would help families," he said.
Jones too defended Echols in an interview with The Tennessean.
The president of the foundation, David Jones, said that Echols directed that his funds be used for the home schooling group."He donated to a Christian School," Jones said in a phone interview. "The check was written from the foundation to the school immediately."
"He does not deserve to have his reputation sullied like that," Jones said of Echols. "He is beyond reproach and to label him in this manner is just really sick.”
But Echols says the furor over the contributions has put his career in jeopardy. He works at the prominent law firm Bass Berry and Sims, doing arbitration and mediation work. And he tells the Scene that he has been asked to move out of his office while the firm investigates the matter.
