Monday letters: Repudiate legacy of Tillman constitution

When Associate Editor Cindi Ross Scoppe refers to South Carolina’s Constitution of 1895 as part of Ben Tillman’s “reign of terror,” her words represent a moral imperative to S.C legislators, who ought to legislate as servants of fair justice for all South Carolinians.

As a student of history and civilizations, both in the American South and abroad, let me state unequivocally that all nations have had tenures of terror. The responsibility of leadership is to acknowledge the shame, guilt and injustice of this terror and to clean up and move toward a more promising future of healing and reconciliation.

We have already been blessed to give a message of reconciliation to America, in the respectful movement of the Confederate flag to the museum. We now have another opportunity to lead the United States in another gesture of a future of faith and not fear.

This story was originally published November 23, 2015 at 10:37 AM.