Sharon Hill Cranford: No place for flag in park

Let us be very clear about the Confederate flag (honoring the Confederacy) and the Confederate battle flag (honoring the soldiers who fought for the Confederacy). Both were vanquished by the soldiers who fought under the flag of the United States of America.

In its quest to be conciliatory and reunite the broken nation, the United States failed to ensure that Southerners understood that they lost. Vestiges of that lack of understanding were reflected in their continuing to wave that surrendered flag and the persistence of their descendants to force it, and all the hate it represented, down the throats of other Americans.

This denial also fueled the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. Refusing to acknowledge that every racist act was and is displayed under that flag and/or under a white hood (usually in concert) will ensure that this land will never heal.

Because the conquering United States failed to convince the conquered Confederates that they lost (Confederate soldiers continued to rebel, kill and enslave after the Emancipation Proclamation for more than two years), the Confederate flag has been allowed to continue to raise its vicious head and disguise itself as a symbol promoting heritage.

That may be what the great-grandfather of a recent letter writer told him (“Confederate flag belongs in park,” Sept. 18 Letters to the Editor), but he and his Southern compatriots told my great-grandparents something much different. Moreover, they showed them something much different, by rubbing the Confederate flag in their faces while lynching, burning and pillaging their communities.

I want to thank Wichita Mayor Jeff Longwell and the Wichita Park Board for removing this heinous representation of evil (“Confederate flag out of veterans park for good,” Nov. 10 Eagle). The flag was an insult to our state, whose soldiers bled and died to keep the policies and plans of the Confederacy out of Kansas. Displaying the flag was an insult to the people of color in this state, many of whom fled the South to escape having that flag rubbed in their faces while being brutalized.

This story was originally published November 11, 2015 at 6:01 PM with the headline "Sharon Hill Cranford: No place for flag in park."