Time to remove monument

Mayor Fox,

There are wounds in this city that run deep -- they are the very same wounds that have been highlighted this past year in light of the murder of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and so many more black Americans. We have all had to take a step back in these past few months and reconsider our understanding of how race, inequity, power and authority shape our daily lives and the lives of those around us.

The Confederate monument is a physical representation of these wounds that still exist in our country and our community. Make no mistake, the "state's rights" that these men fought and killed fellow Americans over extended to the right for men to own other men, women and children for their own profit.

I ask that you not value the pride of some citizens over the pain of others. We cannot begin to heal and recover from our past until we address the wounds that still ail us. As the leader of our great city, you have a choice to make. It's time for these monuments to come down. It's time that we celebrate the men and women who have made our city and our state great, not those who rebelled and murdered our American ancestors, and who continue to terrorize and murder our black brothers and sisters in the name of that same fight.

ZACHARY HUNN, Cape Girardeau