The mass murder in South Carolina was clearly one more heinous act in a long tradition of injustice and cruelty toward the descendants of African slaves in the former slave states ("National Parks will stop selling items with the Confederate flag," June 25).
That history began in Virginia 150 years before the Declaration of Independence's assertion that "all men are created equal," which along with the Constitution was a hypocritical document because most of the Founders Fathers had no intention of including slaves in their lofty pronouncements.
The use of the term "person" may have been intended by some to include the slaves (as it does in the enumeration clause "three fifths of all other persons") but no statement of rights was understood to apply to slaves.
The Confederate Stars and Bars and the battle flag are symbols of insurrection against the United States to preserve the power of the South to continue the enslavement of African peoples. The battle flag was then adopted by those who could not accept the results of their defeat.
One of their generals, Nathan Beford Forrest, helped create the Ku Klux Klan, whose members resorted to terrorism and lynching to subordinate the freed slaves and their descendants. That vicious behavior continued under the Confederate battle flag for another century.
The flags of the Confederacy and any variation of them are not symbols of an honorable endeavor. No matter how brave or skilled their warriors and their generals may have been, they fought for a dishonorable cause. America's hypocrisy is continued as long as any flag or leader of the Confederacy is honored.
Ronald P. Bowers, Timonium