Letter: Confederate flag plan a slap in face

Gov. Nikki Haley and the state legislature needed a plan for the future display of the Confederate battle flag removed from the Statehouse grounds after the murders of the nine parishioners at Mother Emanuel AME Church.

A commission proposes a renovation project and flag exhibit at the S.C. Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum that could cost the taxpayers $5.3 million.

It proposes that the flag from the Statehouse grounds be shown in glass fronted by elaborate panels scrolling the names of 24,000 S.C. Confederate soldiers killed in the Civil War. It was described as the "jewel" of the proposed new wing.

This proposal is a cruel slap in the face of the Mother Emanuel AME Church, African-American citizens, and white descendants of Confederate veterans such as myself. Let the Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy pay for it with their money.

Thousands of photos from Reconstruction to the present exist documenting the flag's presence at bombings, burnings and beatings -- settings where African-Americans were killed and/or tortured without mercy.

The Equal Justice Initiative says that from 1877 to 1950 there were 4,000 lynchings across the South of men, women and children. Of these, 164 were in South Carolina.

I suggest giving the $5.3 million to the descendants of the slaves upon whose backs the state of South Carolina was built, and to provide 164 historical markers to serve as memorials indicating the places where lynchings occurred.

Dru Clements

Beaufort

This story was originally published December 17, 2015 at 10:31 PM with the headline "Letter: Confederate flag plan a slap in face."