On Wednesday, June 17, Dylann Roof single-handedly changed history. The immediate and obvious results of his actions were the deaths of nine people and the injuries of many more. That was a horrible tragedy, and I can’t imagine that anyone would think otherwise.
Beyond the immediate tragedy, however, thousands—maybe millions—of law-abiding, patriotic citizens were deeply hurt as well. In fact, the fiber of our nation has been damaged by this act as the forces of political correctness jump on a bandwagon to change or ignore our history.
Jefferson Davis was the President of the Confederate States of America, a nation set up not to support or extend the reach of slavery but to resist the imperialist push by northern states to impose their will on southern states. States’ rights, not slavery, was the rallying cry of those southern patriots who joined the war effort to protect their rights.
That Davis was the President is an indisputable fact, just as it’s indisputable that George Washington was President of the United States. We build statues to honor such men, yet there is a major move afoot now to remove and probably destroy statues of Jefferson Davis. One such is on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin, and the political correctness police are demanding that it be removed.
The Stars and Bars was the battle flag of the Confederate Army. It is also a part of history. It’s not a symbol of wanting to return to slavery, nor has it anything to do with hating Black people. It has to do with remembering those who fought the losing battle to retain our states’ rights, which have been eroding ever since.
This flag did not shoot anyone in Charleston. Dylann Roof did that. The company that manufactured the gun he used didn’t kill anyone either. Dylann Roof did it. Pure and simple.
Let’s not allow the actions of this one horrible individual to feed the fires of gun control or to inflame hatred toward Southerners or to cause us to try to change history by pretending it didn’t exist. It did exist. Jefferson Davis did exist and has been honored by people all over the South for over 150 years now. The flag did exist and served as an honorable symbol of the struggle of honorable men.
If you don’t like Jefferson Davis, don’t honor him. If you don’t like Confederate flags, don’t fly one. But don’t make them objects of scorn and hatred and don’t deny those of us who do want to honor them the right to do so. And don’t pretend that guns or flags or statues walked into that church and shot those people.
And don’t pretend that honoring our heritage makes us some kind of racists. I have numerous friends who’s skin happens to be black or some shade of brown. I don’t have a racist bone in my body, but I do recognize historic facts, and I shouldn’t have to suffer the slurs of those who disagree with my recognition of those facts.
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Writers may not have it all together, but together we have it all.
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David N Walker 
As a lifelong Texan and Southerner, I have enjoyed studying about the Civil War. My love for Texas, the South, and the U.S.A. has never wavered. The Civil War, which sometimes pitted brother against brother, was a great tragedy, but its results did end slavery and strengthen the role of the federal government as opposed to states’ rights. I do not know if diplomacy could have prevented the war. Perhaps more time could have prevented the war and ultimately led to individual states deciding to free their slaves. Whatever, the Confederacy was part of our nation’s history, and the people supporting it believed in their cause(s). That history, in my opinion, needs to be preserved. If anything, its history can help prevent similar incidences from recurring. There are many Confederate officers such as Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, whom I greatly respect. They are an important part of our nation’s and southern heritage, and I personally feel that they are worthy of being the subjects in sculptures and painting. There is a Civil War Museum in west Ft. Worth that is a grand local and tourist site. If you have not toured it, I’d recommend your visiting the place. In closing, I’d like to express my view that a scupture or painting could also be accompanied by visual and or audio media to explain history. Surely, only one perspective is not fair representation. There are indeed “shades of gray” to issues. In fact, the Civil War was the Blue vs the Gray. In conclusion, be open-minded and try to consider varying viewpoints. Don’t wear blinders. And, foremost, preserve our nation’s important history.
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Thanks, Sharon. I think this mad rush to destroy our history is a travesty.
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Amen. We cannot change history and it’s not a good idea to forget history either. That’s how things get repeated. I am not prejudiced either, but it seems to me that if people of a certain race want us to truly reverse what happened, then I suppose they should all be sent back to Africa on overcrowded ships with no amenities. And all Europeans (most of the rest of us) should go back to Europe, or other countries or origin, so that the Native Americans can reclaim land that is rightfully theirs. Just saying.
What’s done is done. Let us learn from it and try to be a better nation in the future.
Patricia Rickrode
w/a Jansen Schmidt
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Thanks, Patricia. Novel ideas, but you do offer a certain rationale.
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David – Excellent essay. Tom and I are both in agreement with the flying of the Confederate flag. I’ve never seen it as a representation of slavery or other harm against the blacks of our country. I saw it at an important part of our history and a history that we still haven’t managed to measure into valid success although we’ve had many years to correct our wrongs.
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Thanks, Sheri. Hope all is going okay with you.
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Tom continues his health battle and I continue to swim in the mountains of research and paper work. Thank you for asking.
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Very thought-provoking, David. I’m glad of your perspective; our country has a lot of views on this, and they differ greatly depending on geography. In our area of Wisconsin, the Confederate flag carries more of a “backwards” tone. I didn’t know it was first a symbol of states’ rights – all these years, we’ve been told that it carries undertones of slavery. What Dylann Roof did was horrible and wrong – like you said, he is completely responsible for his actions. Not a flag; not a statue. Removing these items won’t remove the racial divide in this country. I wish it could be solved that easily. I pray for peace and for God to change the hearts of those who hate.
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Thank you for your thoughtful response, Deanne. Most school kids are taught that the war was all about slavery, but that was a secondary issue. States’ rights was the issue that cause secession, which led to the war. I know many people who treasure the Star and Bars as a symbol of our history and who revere men such as Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis and other heroes of the Confederacy, but I don’t know ONE who wants the return of slavery.
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While I’m going to agree with you, I’m also going to remind you of WHY people are being so “politically correct.” Yes, the flag did not kill those people, guns did not kill those people, Dylann Roof did that. I find it ridiculous that people are wanting to pull down statues and ban all Battle flags. And in the midst of all that, people are forgetting what caused that dystopian mindset in the first place.
I tend to keep myself in the middle. I look at both sides and try to draw logical conclusions from the FACTS. That said, here is my post on how this whole circus with the confederate flag could have been avoided. https://sheaford.wordpress.com/2015/06/25/how-the-confederate-battle-flag-could-have-been-empathetic/
By the way, the Battle flag isn’t technically “Stars and Bars.” That’s this one, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/Flag_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America_%281861-1863%29.svg
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Thanks, Shea. I’ll check out your blog.
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Thank you. 🙂
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