Up with tolerance & grace, down with division & hate

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now am found,

Was blind but now I see.

Those stirring lyrics of the African-American spiritual so poignantly sung Friday by President Barack Obama in his eulogy for one of nine black victims massacred in a Charleston, S.C., church this month climaxed one of the most-powerful oratories of our chief executive’s presidency.

Interestingly, those same lyrics are steeped in irony. After all, former English slave trader John Newton penned “Amazing Grace” in 1779 after his own personal redemption and transformation following a brush with death in a raging storm at sea.

It is that same power of redemption and positive transformation that the president accentuated in his message to the thousands of mourners for the Rev. Clementa Pinckney and eight others murdered in cold blood inside the historic Emanuel AME Church on June 17 by a radical white extremist. Obama called for “a reservoir of goodness” to flow from the racist tragedy in the form of meaningful actions and righteous attitudes to help narrow this nation’s lingering racial divide.

TAKE DOWN THE FLAG

As part of that appeal, the president urged that local and state governments in the South unite in permanently removing the Confederate flag from government-sanctioned displays.

“For too long, we were blind to the pain that the Confederate flag stirred in too many of our citizens. It’s true, a flag did not cause these murders. But ... as we all have to acknowledge, the flag has always represented more than just ancestral pride. For many, black and white, that flag was a reminder of systemic oppression and racial subjugation,” he said.

Obama is spot-on correct.

Yet many argue that the flag stands as a symbol of heritage and history, ignoring some stubborn and vicious realities. The Washington Times, for example, sarcastically called the current clamor to take down the flag “the backdrop of a moment of midsummer madness.”

In truth, the simmering national debate over the flag does not reflect senseless folly. Instead it reflects tempered but well-reasoned furor over the enduring message of hate the powerful symbol evokes. For those who truly see it as a symbol of Southern pride and heritage that transcends slavery and racism, displaying the emblem of the Confederacy on private property cannot be denied. But state and local governments should not sanction its larger message of hate by displaying it on public grounds.

Truth to tell, the flag had been all but relegated to the dunghill of history during much of the nine decades after the North’s victory in the Civil War in 1865. It gained new visibility and fresh vitality only when used as a symbol of hatred and intolerance in opposition to the increasingly powerful civil-rights movement in this nation from the 1950s through today.

It is no coincidence that the Confederate flag was first raised above the South Carolina Capitol in the immediate aftermath of President John F. Kennedy’s call for an end to poll taxes that prevented blacks from voting and of the Supreme Court’s order to halt racial discrimination in public transit systems in 1962.

As a result, today we salute S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley for her moral courage in passionately arguing that it come down forever. Legislators should act swiftly there and in other states and communities to remove this symbol of intolerance from public view and tacit public acceptance. Once it is down for good, all should double down toward achieving the many amazing additional opportunities of transforming hate to grace.