Waldo: Choose truth over heritage: Take down this flag

An accident of my birth is having Confederate heritage. A lot of it. It’s important to me because it’s my family story. More than a dozen of my close relatives three and four generations removed served as officers in the Confederate army or navy.

It’s also important because the direct ancestor of mine most deeply involved in the Confederate cause changed positions — soon after the war — and took up the cause of protecting African-American enfranchisement in a violence-laden moment in history.

Lt. Col. William “Willie” E. Sims, CSA, was my great-great-grandfather. He was born and raised in Woodville, Miss., and his family attended St. Paul’s Episcopal Church with Jefferson Davis. He served in the 21st Mississippi with his two brothers through many of the biggest battles of the Civil War, from Berlin Heights through Cedar Creek, and was wounded twice. His brother, Lt. Col. John Hampton Sims, died at Cedar Creek.

In November 1883, Willie Sims — by then a lawyer in Chatham, Va. — was called upon by the Readjuster Party, of which he had become a member, to speak out. White citizens of nearby Danville scurrilously claimed through a vitriolic pamphlet that black citizens were arming to keep white voters from the polls. The opposite was true. It was instead an armed, organized and violent white effort to keep African-Americans from the polls. In the face of death threats from a well and visibly armed mob, Sims publicly refuted every point in the pamphlet. What followed became known as the Danville Riot.

He survived, but he was changed. He knew as well as anyone that the courageous loyalty to land, family and friends — the heritage — that had shaped him had at its very root the deepest of flaws: a belief that some human beings were superior to others and that skin color determined which ones. In 1883, Willie Sims chose truth over heritage.

I grew up in Montgomery during the 1960s and 1970s when the battle flag of my Confederate ancestors was returned to public display on Alabama’s Capitol in the midst of the civil rights movement. The Civil War Centennial notwithstanding, the political timing and intent of that display is clear, as is the placement of the flag on the dome of South Carolina’s Capitol. The fact is that whether they fly above or below capitol domes, both are visible symbols of racial oppression and degradation — in the 1860s, in the 1960s and now. In Charleston, Dylann Roof tragically, painfully and indisputably demonstrated the authority of hatred and violence that this symbol seems to bestow on some people.

The courage and bravery that lived in the hearts of young men who carried this flag into battle so long ago are virtues we all admire. They fought bravely for their families and their heritage. Nothing, however, can remove the deep flaw that sent the Confederate battle flag into battle in the first place: defining one race of God’s children as less than human. Today that flag is, more than anything else, a banner, sign and symbol of hatred.

I am grateful to Gov. Nikki Haley for her courage in calling for the removal of the Confederate flag from the grounds of the State House. As we approach with hope the realization of this moment, I am reminded of one of President Ronald Reagan’s defining moments. In June 1987, he proclaimed to the world that another profound symbol of oppression, the Berlin Wall, had to go. I paraphrase his words:

South Carolina legislators, the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of peace and human dignity. There is one sign you can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of racial justice, freedom and peace in our state. If you seek equality, if you seek prosperity for all citizens of South Carolina, if you seek equal access to the pursuit of happiness, meet on the State House grounds, come to this monument, and take down this flag.

This story was originally published June 24, 2015 at 7:01 PM with the headline "Waldo: Choose truth over heritage: Take down this flag."