Many years ago when I was in high school, I had a teacher of U.S. history, he was a black man by the way, who taught us that the Civil War was not fought over slavery. It was fought over the issue of “states’ rights”… slavery being one of those rights as far as the South was concerned. The Confederate flag is not a symbol of slavery. It was a battle flag for hundreds of thousands of Americans who believed, and in many cases died, in the states’ rights issue. Are we going to chisel the flag off their grave stones? Pretend the Civil War never happened? History cannot, and should not be altered! If people want to make a big deal out of something, what about the state of Washington. We are named after a slave owner for God’s sake! His likeness is on our state flag. Oh, no! Maybe we should rename our state after Chief Sealth. Guess not, a whole other issue there. There are skeletons in everyone’s closet. Our country is no different.
Dick Hougardy
Everett
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