Flags disappear, but memorials thornier

The removal of the Confederate flag from Southern state capitols is an obvious and overdue step, but the issue gets more complicated when considering statues used to remember Civil War soldiers.

After the killing of nine parishioners in a South Carolina church, by an alleged gunman motivated by racist hate, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and other politicians in that state finally called for the Confederate battle flag to be taken down from their state Capitol. Alabama’s governor subsequently ordered the Confederate flag to no longer be flown at the Capitol there.

Removing the flag is an easy call. It not only symbolizes a war fought over slavery, but Southern states only started flying it at their capitols as they resisted desegregation in the 1950s and 1960s.

Things get trickier when considering symbols remembering those who fought and died in the Civil War, such as a Confederate soldier memorial erected in 1904 in downtown Gainesville.