Letter to the editor:

The Treasonous Confederacy

The Rebel capital of Richmond, Virginia, fell in 1865 to the Union, the
most significant fall of the de facto Confederacy.

General Ulysses S. Grant for ten months, had tried unsuccessfully to

infiltrate the city. After Lee made a desperate attack against Fort Stedman
along the Union line on March 25, Grant prepared for a major offensive.
He struck at Five Forks on April 1, crushing the end of Lees line
southwest of Petersburg. On April 2, the Yankees struck all along the
Petersburg line, and the outlawed Confederates collapsed.

On the evening of April 2, the Confederate government fled the city with
the army right behind. And, on the morning of April 3, blue-coated troops
entered the capital. Richmond was the holy grail of the Union war effort,
the object of four years of campaigning. Tens of thousands of Yankee
lives were lost trying to get it, and nearly as many Confederate lives lost
trying to defend it.

Approximately, thirty-nine years later, segregationist, in the Virginia

General Assembly, engaged in numerous illegal acts of Assembly,
leaving this generation to correct.

For example, In February 1904, white supremacist passed the precursor to

the current Virginia Code 15.2-1812. As then written, the statute stated:

Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That the circuit court

of any county be, and hereby is empowered, with the concurrence of the
board of supervisors of each county entered of record, to authorize and
permit the erection of a Confederate monument upon the public square
of such county at the county seat thereof. And if the same shall be so
erected, it shall not be lawful thereafter for the authorities of said county
or any other person or persons whatever, to disturb or interfere with any
monument so erected.

Now, the Courts must rule the unconstitutional amendment to state law,
which operates as a legal protective order, preventing local governments
from removing Confederate monuments, that should have been struck
down long ago.
We cannot continue to glorify a war against the United States of
America fought in the defense of white supremacy, political rebellion,
slavery, racial segregation, murder, and treason. "These monuments on
government property must come down."

MR. ROY L. PERRY-BEY

COALITION FOR EQUAL JUSTICE
HAMPTON, VIRGINIA