By Susan Wright Beard

Special to the Salisbury Post

As a confident and proud liberal living in Rowan County, I have found myself struggling with the idea of taking down Confederate statues all across the South. Having grown up in the deep South (Louisiana), which is different from the North Carolina I have known for 30 years, I realized that when I thought of the Civil War, I thought of young white women making sacrifices and young white men going off to war to defend their lifestyle — kind of like Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara. In all the books I have read and the movies I have seen, most of the characters were not presented as evil people.  But there were always a few bad guys thrown in to help you understand how honorable the main characters were in their endeavors.

Don’t get me wrong. I never saw slavery as romantic or as an acceptable way of life. I’ve always believed in equal rights, and many years ago when I was in high school, I spent a lot of time arguing against segregation. But only after people reminded me over and over again in years past that the Civil War era was a part of our history that was too horrific and too painful for them to even think about today did I begin to really change my ideas.  The idea that that era led to much of the continued injustice in the lives of African Americans in our country even through today made me become more emotionally connected. Then I had no problem taking the statues down, but I still didn’t understand it completely and wondered how it would help race relations today.

However, after reading the excerpt from Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s speech on the Salisbury Post Opinion page did I get on board 100 percent. Two sentences did it for me, and in case you missed them, here they are.  “After the Civil War, these statues were a part of that terrorism as much as a burning cross on someone’s lawn; they were erected purposely to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city.  Should you have further doubt about the true goals of the Confederacy, in the very weeks before the war broke out, the Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, made it clear that the Confederate cause was about maintaining slavery and white supremacy.”  Sound familiar?

I am extremely proud of being a Southerner and will let anyone know that if they, being from another part of the country, make any negative implications about the South. But the Civil War and all the horrors that went before it and after it are not part of my heritage that I am proud of and want to maintain. If that is the part of your heritage that is most important to you, then I think that says something about you, something you can’t deny. If your heritage lifts up hate and injustice, maybe it’s time to find other ways of honoring your past.

Susan Wright Beard lives in Salisbury.