His grandfather was a slave. Now he's a vocal champion for Confederate monuments.

Nelson Winbush relishes talking about his grandfather’s time as a Confederate soldier, fighting at the command of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general, slave trader and imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

The 88-year-old retired Florida educator proudly wears hats, shirts and a belt buckle emblazoned with Confederate flags. And he’s the star of a video featuring members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, in which he talks about the flag’s history, calling it a symbol of Christianity, not slavery.

Winbush is also black, and so was his grandfather.

“When I joined, it wasn’t any kind of rebellion,” Winbush said of his membership with the Sons of Confederate Veterans. He voted to install a Confederate monument in a veterans park near his home, where a tribute to Union soldiers already stood. “I wanted to set the record straight. A lot of people thought blacks fled, but blacks fought in every state.”