Editor, Gazette-Journal:

I love Mathews County. I am a property owner on Gwynn’s Island; I gladly pay taxes every year to Mathews County.

I have been coming to the island every year for 60-plus years and have always been bothered by the Confederate symbols I see.

Honor the Confederacy in our history books, libraries and museums, but don’t display the Confederate flag and Confederate statues in our County Square.

It is an offensive racist symbol. Thankfully, we do not buy and sell people as slaves any more. We are all Americans of a variety of colors and ought to proudly display our American flags as citizens of one great country.

I was so pleased to read in my Gazette-Journal that Mathews County’s elementary school has removed the “Lee-Jackson” name.

I hope that the Confederate statue will also be removed from the Court House Square and replaced with a beautiful sculpture, like a blue heron with plantings of flowers to symbolize the beauty of this Bay County!

Rev....