Send a letter: It's time to take down Confederate monuments
More than聽1,500 Confederate聽symbols stand in communities like Charlottesville聽with聽the potential to unleash more聽turmoil and bloodshed.
It's time to take the monuments down.
Please send a Letter to the Editor to your local newspaper to take down or rename the Confederate symbols in your community. Here鈥檚 sample language you can use 鈥� or, better, put it in your own words. Then fill out the form at the bottom of the page to let us know where you鈥檝e sent it.
Together, we can make our communities safer and our country a place聽where liberty and justice are truly for all. 聽
Dear editor,
White supremacists incited deadly violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, last week in defense of a Confederate monument. We must show the country that [your city's or county鈥檚 name] gives no safe harbor to such hatred. We must remove the monument at [location].
Confederate symbols on public land, in effect, endorse a movement founded on white supremacy. If our government continues to pay homage to the Confederacy, people of color can never be sure they will be treated fairly. And we will never solve our community鈥檚 problems if an entire group of citizens is alienated or feels targeted for discrimination.
Confederate symbols belong in museums and on private property. In museums, we can learn their full history. Citizens will always have the right to fly the Confederate flag. They can still erect monuments on their own property. That will not change.
But it is past time to move our monument to an appropriate place. [Your mayor鈥檚 or county commission president鈥檚 name], editors of [your local newspaper], [your member of Congress] and the rest of our community should research how to remove the monument. Then we should act.
Sincerely,
[Your name].
