Editor, Gazette-Journal:

My wife and I recently came to the Mathews/Onemo area to stay at a home we rented for a week’s vacation. We arrived on Tuesday, Sept. 6, somewhat late but were pleased to find Southwind Pizza still open for dinner.

What we did not find so pleasing was the presence of a Confederate flag planted on each corner of the statue directly across the street in the Mathews Town Square. The Confederate flag is a symbol of racism and the continued insistence by some misguided people that the Civil War was only about state’s rights and not about the rights of enslavers to own Black people.

If we, two white senior citizens from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, found this offensive, I cannot imagine how hard that might be for people of color to have to see this blatant symbol of oppression staring at them from government property.

If Mathews wishes to continue to attract tourism and visitors who enjoy the many attributes of the area (as we did) the town’s residents shou...