Letter: Confederate flag ceremony haunting

It haunts my thoughts and keeps me awake at night. I had to write.

The South Carolina Secessionist Party hopes to hold a four-hour rally July 10 on Statehouse grounds to mark the first anniversary of the removal of the Confederate flag from these grounds ... and to raise the flag again during the rally, according to an April 3 Island Packet article. Some lawmakers may be waffling.

Lawmakers voted to remove the controversial flag last year. Once called the Civil War banner, the Confederate flag has become nothing more than the thin veil of bigotry, white supremacy, and racism. It has no place in the South Carolina of today.

The heritage of slavery is a burden South Carolina must bear. It should not be celebrated; rather it should be viewed as a hard lesson learned from history about a flawed economic system built on the backs of blacks; and a jaded sense of morality that condoned white people owning black people. There is simply no justification for the brutality, immorality and evil of this way of life.

I for one will wear a black armband on July 10 to honor the courage and wisdom of the lawmakers of modern day South Carolina who took down that flag last year, and to mourn the Confederate soldiers who died long ago upholding a society, an economy and a way of life built on the wrong side of right. God forgive them.

This story was originally published April 15, 2016 at 5:14 PM with the headline "Letter: Confederate flag ceremony haunting."