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This past Memorial Day weekend felt different than others thanks to the state of our union. It isn’t just the “beginning” of summer. Originally the holiday was established to honor and remember the soldiers who died during the Civil War, particularly those fighting against the stars and bars, the Confederate battle flag, representing the slave-holding South and its plans to leave the Union and expand its influence across the continent.
The eldest son of my great, great grandfather, Eliphalet Owen Jr., was killed while serving in the Union Army in 1863, by a Confederate sniper in Virginia. Beria was buried in Alexandria National Cemetery in Alexandria, Virginia, for the Union dead. When the war came to an end, Eliphalet, a minister and abolitionist, left Connecticut to work for the Freedman’s Bureau in Virginia. And he did so for several years before returning to his ministry.
I think there are many reasons to be offended by Donald Trump’s renewed presence in the White House. One is personal. As you recall, to overturn the election of Joe Biden, he incited an attack on the Capitol, which included some white nationalists carrying the stars and bars, a flagrant insult against all the Union soldiers who died to preserve the Union and keep that flag out of our nation’s Capitol. That insult looms large in my mind.
Jim Owen
Belfast
