You’ve probably noticed that a lot of the news lately has centered on the Confederate flag. There’s always been a controversy over the flag, but it pretty much came to a head over the killings of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina.
Shortly after we moved to West Virginia, we drove by our local cemetery on Memorial Day and there were a number of Confederate flags displayed on the graves in one section. Claire was astonished that the Confederate flag was being flown instead of the Stars and Stripes. That section of the cemetery contains the remains of Confederate troops that fought in the battle of Antietam. That’s the flag they fought, and died, under. For whatever reason, they believed in something enough to give their lives. I thought at the time, and continue to think, that it’s appropriate to display that flag on their graves. I suspect that a great many — probably most — of those soldiers buried here in Shepherdstown did not own slaves — they fought to defend what they perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be unjustified Northern aggression.
I absolutely agree that removing the Confederate flag from the South Carolina statehouse grounds was the right thing to do. But more and more over the last few days, I’m seeing the (typical?) over-reaction to the flag and the trend to seemingly consider anything related to the Confederate states offensive and vindictive. Apparently a lot of people are using this one incident to promote their own “causes.” It falls into the category of grandstanding that seems so prevalent in politics today. A part of Route 1 that runs from the Washington area south is named Jefferson Davis Highway. There is a move afoot to rename that section of the road. I’ve read just in the last couple of days of movements to change the names of highways, schools, public buildings and pretty much anything and everything that in any way refers to something or someone related to the Confederate states. Of course politicians are going to jump on this — it’s a great political tactic, an easy way to raise their profile, especially if they’re a legislative newbie. According to some of the political speeches I’ve heard, we’ll be able to eliminate all residue of racism by taking down these signs. If only it were that easy.
Removing the flag from the statehouse grounds in South Carolina probably serves as some sort of a symbolic victory but removing the flag won’t eliminate racism and in fact may make things worse in some regions where whites and blacks believe the flag only exists as a symbol of slavery.
Like it or not, the Confederate flag is a piece of history — it has no place flying over government buildings, but the display of the flag is appropriate at historic sites, museums and, yes, graves of Confederate soldiers….
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