Re “We shall overcome,” June 25-27 edition:

Given the recent vandalizing of a Virginia monument, I can’t help but be concerned for the future of the Commonwealth. The history of the Confederacy is everywhere and the attempts to erase it, as several Southern states have proposed to do, should give every Southerner pause.

In this eradication of Confederate memorabilia, history is in danger of either being erased or pushed into the mythical “other.” When that happens, history is more likely to repeat. What’s more, the South is stripped of its culture and character of people who have overcome adversity through failure to win on an evil disposition.

To stop this, we need not look to the “stars and bars” as a symbol of hate and racism, but a symbol of freedom and victory. The Confederate flag is a reminder and a relic of a past conquered, those streets and monuments are reminders of those men who lost on a bad idea, and the winners may now walk on them.

We can celebrate that, within a matter of hours, a man was captured for killing in the name of that flag, instead of getting away or being patted on the back. That is because we can say it is our flag, our reminder that the Charleston shooting is not an everyday occurrence in the former Confederate states, but a rarity because people like the shooter don’t start with the flag to feed their hatred, but appropriate it to justify their hatred. Just as we can appropriate it to justify our victory, remember our history and preserve our culture in the South.

CARMEN SMITH

Bumpass