Ronald Keeney: Add a burning cross?

I agree with those supporters who often call for a history lesson in Southern heritage, but let’s teach the objective history of Southern heritage, the one in which human beings were kidnapped from their homes, transported against their will and then imprisoned on Southern plantations to prop up the economy of the South with free labor.

Let’s stop teaching that the Confederate flag represents a gentle, honorable Southern heritage that is acceptable in any civilized way.

Let’s teach that the ancestors who fought and lost their lives for the Confederacy actually tried to overthrow the U.S. government and stop the evolution of a country that arguably became the greatest in the world, the one that contributes to the growth of freedom and strengthened economies around the world.

I am concerned just after this 239th anniversary of U.S. independence from English tyranny that there are those who still want to honor the symbol of a lost insurrection that would deny freedom for so many and continue a different form of tyranny.

Would anyone advocate adding a burning cross to the flag of failed Southern tyranny? That is also a symbol of our Southern heritage.

This story was originally published July 11, 2015 at 2:00 PM with the headline "Ronald Keeney: Add a burning cross?."