Albert Lea has been getting a lot of good press for the healthy living and walking programs it is promoting. It makes me proud to say, from a distance, “that’s my hometown.” But the article appearing in the Star Tribune on Sunday, which goes statewide, undoes the pride and causes me such embarrassment I hate to admit it could happen in good old Albert Lea. Would I want to admit I’m even remotely connected?

A firefighter flying a Confederate flag, and getting by with it, obviously has not studied his Minnesota or American history. I hope he’s a better firefighter. My father told a story many times about being terrified by having to detour around a KKK rally on the main street of Janesville in 1924. In order to get to Saturday morning confirmation class, he had to sidestep the Klan.

The Klan in those years had chapters in most Minnesota towns. It lynched people in Duluth. It held statewide rallies in Owatonna. It promoted its brand of hatred for any blacks, Jews, Irish or Germans. This was between the world wars, and Germans were disliked. Federal government policy promoted this, and it was carried out by patriotic churchgoing Minnesotans. Swastikas were painted on barns or burned in grainfields. This was history never taught in humanities classes.

I have served congregations in southern Minnesota and walked through the graveyards that still have gravemarkers of those who fought in the Civil War.

A symbol of hatred for a losing cause of slavery and disrespect for people who are different should have no place in a Fourth of July parade in 2015.

If the firefighter saw this as a protest against “PC going too far” than he is absolutely correct. Political confusion can be mean, disrespectful, embarrassing and it should be rooted out of public discourse.

 

Harold “Harry” Mueller

Albert Lea class of 1963

Eagan