Monument should be moved

The relocation in 1995 of a monument to Confederate soldiers to the grounds of the Common Pleas Courthouse was problematic. But, now that the city council has commendably renamed the park Ivers Square to honor a black Union soldier and his wife, the continuing presence of the monument in its current location is intolerable.

The new name comprehends the entire park, but that space includes a monument to the very people who enslaved the Ivers and against whom he served in the army! Would we consider renaming a park to honor Frederick Douglass yet leave untouched an old monument to the Ku Klux Klan? Would we attach the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. to our town square but preserve there a plaque celebrating the governorship of George Wallace?

The monument to the Confederacy must be removed. Contrary to the claims of Professor Steven Hoffman, this removal would not be an attempt to "scrub unpleasant facts from our history," nor would it be a denial of how complex Missouri's Civil War past was. Placing it at the Cape River Heritage Museum would, indeed, enhance the monument's historical value. There it could be properly contextualized as a document of the Lost Cause mythology that unfortunately endures even today.

BRUCE R. KAHLER, Cape Girardeau