OTIS SANFORD:
It’s time to remove symbols of racial hate from public places.
Throughout the South, defiance is starting to give way to compassion. And the seeds of genuine reconciliation are starting to supersede the symbols of racial intimidation.
The racism-induced murders of nine trusting African-American churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, on June 17 have created a level of introspection about race that hasn’t been seen in this country since the civil rights movement.
Those who were once as bullheaded about racial tolerance as Bull Connor are now changing their thinking about the in-your-face symbols of hate that dot the Southern landscape. They realize that talk of Southern heritage and pride were merely lame excuses that — like the Confederate battle flag — can no longer fly.
The call to remove the flag from prominence on statehouse grounds around the South had no better spokesman last week than the son of the late U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, who once ran for president solely on a segregationist platform.
“It is time to acknowledge our past, atone for our sins, and work for a better future,” said South Carolina state Sen. Paul Thurmond. “That future cannot be built on symbols of war, hate and divisiveness.”
He added that the heritage of slavery that is embodied in the Confederate battle flag should carry no prideful moments. “I am not proud of this heritage. These practices were inhumane and wrong, wrong, wrong. I am proud to take a stand and no longer be silent” on the flag issue, he said. “We must take down the Confederate flag, and we must take it down now. But if we stop there, we have cheated ourselves out of an opportunity to start a different conversation about healing in our state.”
These were powerful words, not just because of
who was saying them, but also because they helped set the tone for other Southern white conservatives to finally show some courage and try to lead like-minded politicians and constituents out of the wilderness of racism.
In the coming days and weeks, I hope that other vestiges of racial hate are gone from public spaces. For example, it would be great if the equestrian statue honoring Nathan Bedford Forrest — along with the remains of Forrest and his wife, Mary — were moved from the city-owned park near Downtown Memphis and relocated to the Forrest family plot at Elmwood Cemetery.
The monument has been in the park — once named for the Confederate general — since 1905. It was sculpted in Paris, France, and shipped to New York. It then made the long journey to Memphis by rail. The move to Elmwood would only be a few miles.
The people, mostly women, who worked for years to get the statue erected intended for it to remain in the park forever. Sadly, they never considered whether future generations would believe that Forrest’s racist ways were detestable.
Moving the monument now would be herculean. “The price would be incalculable,” said Kimberly McCollum, executive director at Elmwood, where Forrest and his wife were buried before being moved to the park.
While that’s true, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Forrest might have been, as the old Memphis News-Scimitar newspaper said in 1905, “one of the greatest men Tennessee has ever produced and one of the most remarkable generals the world has ever known.”
But he was also a slave trader and leader of the Ku Klux Klan. That history is offensive to most Americans, regardless of race, and cannot be whitewashed. Kudos to Gov. Bill Haslam and Sen. Bob Corker for leading the push to remove a bust of Forrest from the Tennessee statehouse and getting rid of the Confederate flag emblem on state license plates.
Unfortunately, it took the slaughter of nine innocent black people for many Southern politicians to see the light. The 21-year-old assassin, who glorified the Confederate flag, was consumed by racial hatred. He killed to send a message. And his racial sentiments are not isolated.
Our best response — indeed our only response — is to send a collective message of our own — by removing the symbols of hate and resuming the never-ending ideal of tolerance.