Dear editor,
I want to thank the people, especially NAACP Okaloosa County leader Ray Nelson, for pushing so hard to get the (Confederate battle) flag removed.
This is 2016. I've been fighting that flag since 1996. It's time to retire it or put it in a museum.
We're still playing games with the flag, and I know its on city property, not private property. Let the people put the flag on their property. As long as we leave it in a public place, we'll always have a division.
That flag killed over half of U.S. blacks — men, women, children and unborn children. It is a symbol of racism and hatred, and to me it is a blood flag for the black generation.Honoring it is the same as honoring a swastika flag flying against Jews.
Anytime anything is going on where whites want to scare black people, they bring out that flag.
The North won the war. It's over. The U.S. won that war.
I hope our mayor and the city councilmen have enough of a backbone and godliness in them to do the right thing to bring that flag down.
I would like for Mayor Cadle to bring it down and put it in a museum or give it to the (Lundy) family for them to put it on their own land, not public places where people have to pay taxes on it.
Nowhere in Crestview should that rebel flag be put in a public place.
And I hope that we do not have to keep fighting it. That flag issue will be brought up for the next 100 years if it keeps flying, because the reasons behind it are wrong.
I don't have any hatred in my heart for anybody in Crestview; I just want everybody to feel comfortable, like they are part of Crestview.
I'd love to see the memorial and flag gone, because if they leave the monument there, they'll bring the flag back and put it on the monument later.
I wouldn't want the mayor or the council to attempt to give or sell the land the monument is on to any family, either.
They shouldn't get to put a rebel flag there.
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Editor's Note: The City Council will field residents' concerns about the Confederate battle flag during a special meeting on Thursday, Aug. 6.
The 5:30 p.m. meeting at Warriors Hall is expected to attract representatives from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's Okaloosa County branch and Southern Strong, a growing Facebook group with 477 members from Okaloosa, Walton, Santa Rosa and Escambia counties.
What's your view? Write a letter to the editor or tweet us.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: LETTER: Rebel flag has no place on Crestview public property