Confederate monuments' removal praised by Southern Baptists
As a child growing up in Virginia, Marshal Ausberry never understood it. Why were monuments to Confederate soldiers prominently displayed in public spaces across his state?
"To see the Confederate flag and these larger than life statues to over-romanticized Confederate heroes of the Confederate South strewn throughout Virginia constantly reminded me that there were people who were willing to fight, bleed, sacrifice and die to keep black people chained into a system of brutality and bondage," said Ausberry, who pastors Antioch Baptist Church in Fairfax Station, Va., and is first vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Nearly two weeks after a black man, George Floyd, died in police custody -- after a white police officer used a knee to pin his neck to the ground for several minutes -- many of those monuments are coming down. On Thursday (June 4), Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced a...
