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To The Editor:

The issue of statues has gotten out of hand.

The Confederate Soldier’s statue was not a particular Confederate soldier, it is a memorial to all the Confederate soldiers who gave their lives for their country. Most of those soldiers did not own slaves and were not “fighting for slavery.” They were defending their states that were under attack. It is wrong to impose currently accepted beliefs and moral standards on people who lived 200 years ago and destroy a memorial to their honor.

As for Barbara Johns, how do you know that 100 years from now she will not become a symbol of something unacceptable to the standards of that day? I have no objection to honoring Barbara Johns, but I feel it inflames racial divides to tear down monuments put up by white people and then erect monuments to black people.

I would like for us as a community, a state and a nation to get beyond this destructive and hateful thinking that is currently leading to destruction and defacing of monuments, just let everyone have their own monuments and respect them all.

Cindy Koether

Farmville