Send a letter: It's time to take down Confederate monuments

Please send a Letter to the Editor to your local newspaper to take down or rename the Confederate symbols in your community. Here’s sample language you can use – or, better, put it in your own words. Then fill out the form at the bottom of the page to let us know where you’ve sent it.

Together, we can make our communities safer and our country a place where liberty and justice are truly for all.  

Dear editor,

White supremacists incited deadly violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, last week in defense of a Confederate monument. We must show the country that [your city's or county’s name] gives no safe harbor to such hatred. We must remove the monument at [location].

Confederate symbols on public land, in effect, endorse a movement founded on white supremacy. If our government continues to pay homage to the Confederacy, people of color can never be sure they will be treated fairly. And we will never solve our community’s problems if an entire group of citizens is alienated or feels targeted for discrimination.

Confederate symbols belong in museums and on private property. In museums, we can learn their full history. Citizens will always have the right to fly the Confederate flag. They can still erect monuments on their own property. That will not change.

But it is past time to move our monument to an appropriate place. [Your mayor’s or county commission president’s name], editors of [your local newspaper], [your member of Congress] and the rest of our community should research how to remove the monument. Then we should act.

Sincerely,

[Your name].