Dear South Carolina Governor & Legislators,

I was born in Charleston.  I'm a daughter of the South.  There's a city in Spartanburg County -- Landrum, SC -- that was named for some distant relatives of mine.  And my direct ancestor fought in the Civil War for the Confederacy.  My family owns land in the South that was passed down for generations, land that once we enslaved other people on. 

I understand heritage. I understand heritage is complicated.  I understand we have to remember the bad of who we were, and the hard times, along with the good of who we are, and the good times.  I understand that lives were lost and lives were changed, and the Confederacy and the Civil War continue to shape us.  I understand that we can't forget the past, nor do I want to.

I understand heritage.  I struggle with mine, celebrate mine, mourn about mine, live with mine.  Heritage is complicated.

But flying the Confederate flag doesn't represent my heritage, which goes back generations before and continues generations after the Confederacy.  It could only represent a thin slice of heritage at best.  But this symbol doesn't do even that.  It doesn't even truly represent that slice of time -- it's not the flag that flew in South Carolina during the Confederacy, it's the battle flag of another state.  It's not something that's been there, flying over or in front of government buildings, untouched, since that time. It's a symbol that was brought back into our public spaces by the resistance to the Civil Rights movement, a symbol that was brought back for reasons of hatred and racism.  It's a symbol that's been used and abused by the KKK.  It's a symbol that might seem to say "heritage" for some small percentage, but says "hatred" and "oppression" for so many others.  And it has no business on our public lands and flying over our government buildings. 

It's time to acknowledge that this symbol was put up for the wrong reasons, it's the wrong symbol, and it's time for it to come down.  It doesn't truly represent heritage.  It represents a hate that has no place in our government any more.  It represents a time when we acted wrongly, fighting against voter registration and glorifying a time of slavery. 

To truly respect our heritage, to truly honor it, we have to also be willing to honor the truth -- the complicated truth that there were things our ancestors were wrong about, and there were things they chose that we can't applaud.  My ancestors had honor and love and a number of good virtues, I'm sure.  But my ancestors drove Native Americans off their land, and then on that land my ancestors enslaved African Americans.  That's not something I want to wave a flag proudly for.  It's not something I want to forget, either.  But honoring and respecting heritage means understanding this complexity, that not all was good, not all was admirable, and not all was what we want to carry forward.  I might have German ancestors, but flying the Nazi flag wouldn't honor heritage, it would honor hate.  Flying the Confederate flag doesn't honor the complexity of heritage -- it shouts a message of oppression.

And one thing that clearly we need to not carry forward at this time in our country is a symbol that speaks of hatred, of oppression, and of slavery.  We need to not have symbols that glorify racism and oppression as part of our government and its buildings and sites.  The symbol needs to be placed in its proper context, and that is purely historical.

It's time to take down the Confederate flag.

Sincerely,
Rev. Dr. Cynthia L. Landrum

In the Civil Rights era, there were churches that were centers for civil rights organizing.  And they were attacked -- bombed, set on fire.  We know best the story of the 16th Street Baptist church where four young girls died.  In his eulogy for them, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would say, "They died between the sacred walls of the church of God, and they were discussing the eternal meaning of love."

In that same eulogy for the victims of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. also said:

"They have something to say to every minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained-glass windows. They have something to say to every politician who has fed his constituents with the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism. They have something to say to a federal government that has compromised with the undemocratic practices of southern Dixiecrats and the blatant hypocrisy of right-wing northern Republicans. They have something to say to every Negro who has passively accepted the evil system of segregation and who has stood on the sidelines in a mighty struggle for justice. They say to each of us, black and white alike, that we must substitute courage for caution. They say to us that we must be concerned not merely about who murdered them, but about the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers. Their death says to us that we must work passionately and unrelentingly for the realization of the American dream."

They are words he would share again in his eulogy for the Unitarian Universalist minister James Reeb.

After the shooting in the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, a shooting motivated by hatred of the values we stand for, the UUA launched our social justice movement "Standing on the Side of Love." 

This shooting in Charleston, South Carolina at the Emanuel AME Church says something to us in our religious faith, too. This shooting doesn't call for us to launch a movement, but to join a movement.  This shooting calls for us to be partners, work in solidarity, join coalitions, build bridges. 

These deaths say to us that we must work passionately and unrelentingly for Love.