---

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, January 3, 1993                   TAG: 9301040258
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: F-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

---

THE BATTLE FLAG MEMORIALIZES

IT IS A TRAVESTY that your newspaper seeks to fuel the flames of racial strife by calling for the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the dome of the Alabama state Capitol. It is unfortunate, also, that hate groups march with the Confederate battle flag along with the flags of the United States and Christianity.

Rather than call for the removal of the flag, the news media should instead try to educate the uneducated about the reason those banners continue to fly. Simply, the flag is no more than a memorial to the men and women who served their native states in the War for Southern Independence. Better than 70 percent of the Southerners, both black and white, who fought under that banner did not even own slaves. Why would they have wanted to preserve some wealthy plantation-owners' labor system?

They fought, as did my ancestors, for states' rights. To suggest Alabama is "celebrating" or even trying to "re-establish" the secession is a mockery. Memorials, Mr. Editor, are not celebrations! EDWARD J. BENNETT ROANOKE

---