From the horrific massacre last week in a South Carolina church, the nation is witnessing a historic sea change in attitude regarding the chief symbol of racial hatred that has helped divide this country for so long — the Confederate flag.

The flag was used on Civil War battlefields during the bloody four-year fight to keep black people enslaved.

More than 150 years later, the offensive flag continues to be waved today by people such as the 21-year-old white gunman who sat for an hour with an African-American Bible study group before unbelievably whipping out a gun and taking the lives of nine people ranging in age from 26 to 87.

His racist rant at the scene, as well as his anti-black manifesto posted to a website with photos of him with the Confederate flag, were met with the unearned grace of forgiveness by the families of his victims.

The entire episode has pricked the hearts and conscience of the nation. Within the past 48 hours, we have witnessed a seismic shift across the South, with swift efforts to remove Confederate flags and other symbols of the Confederacy from state capitol buildings, public spaces and the inventory of national retailers.

Among them:

• In Alabama, where federal troops had to be brought in in 1963 to curb segregationist Gov. George Wallace, the Confederate flag was ordered to be taken down from the Capitol Wednesday in Montgomery by Gov. Robert Bentley.

• In Mississippi, Republican House Speaker Philip Gunn said Monday the Confederate emblem on that state’s flag is offensive and needs to be removed.

• In Kentucky, U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader, said Tuesday that the statue of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, needs to be removed from the state Capitol’s rotunda.

• In South Carolina, Republican Gov. Nikki Haley, joined by U.S. senators and other elected officials, called for the divisive symbol to be removed from the flagpole outside the state Capitol in Columbia. One of those officials is state Sen. Paul Thurmond, son of the late segregationist U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond. The younger Thurmond, a Republican who represents Charleston in the state legislature, said Tuesday: “It is time to acknowledge our past, atone for our sins and work for a better future. That future cannot be built on symbols of war, hate, and divisiveness.”

• In Tennessee, Republican and Democratic lawmakers called for a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and leader of the Ku Klux Klan, to be removed from an alcove outside the Senate chamber in the Statehouse.

• In Virginia, Gov. Terry McAuliffe ordered the removal of the Confederate battle flag from state license plates. Three other states, Maryland, North Carolina and Tennessee, are starting the process to remove the Confederate flag from specialized license plates.

We applaud Gov. McAuliffe’s action. And we challenge him to go further by eliminating the Lee-Jackson state holiday observed in January, just days before the national holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

In addition to needlessly expending taxpayer money for state workers to take a holiday, it sends the wrong message — particularly to young people — by continuing to honor Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson because the state has adopted the revisionist notion that these men were heroes. They were traitors who waged war against the United States, and they went into battle to maintain a way of life that denied the humanity of black people.

We also call on Gov. McAuliffe and Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones to seek ways to turn over the maintenance of the Confederate statues on Monument Avenue and elsewhere in the city to private groups. Rather than spending taxpayer dollars for their upkeep, the statues can be maintained with the donations of those who claim to be so proud of this part of their heritage. Make the heritage mean something by requiring them to keep up the statues.

To be certain, the changes we are seeing are remarkable because they are happening almost overnight when, ironically, scores of marchers, protesters and activists have spent decades trying to achieve them.

While eliminating the symbols of hate would be a big step toward healing and reconciliation, make no mistake, it will not eliminate racism and deep-seated racial animosity in this country any more than the historic election of President Obama means that we live in a “post-racial” society.

By removing these symbols of hate, we can move on to the tougher work of eliminating the barriers that deny equal opportunity in employment and education.

Federal statistics for May continue to show the large gap in employment between black and white people nationally. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for African-Americans was 10.2 percent in May, compared to 4.7 percent for white people and 5.5 percent overall.

Additionally, Pew Research data for 2013 shows the median net worth of white households is $142,000, or 13 times higher than that of black households at $11,000.

The root of much of the disparity lies in segregationist public policy that is pervasive still, experts say.

It’s time to address these policy issues in Virginia and across the nation that have even more damaging consequences than Confederate flags and statues.