July 17, 2020
Dear Parishioners:
Your Wardens, Vestry, and I have just recently become aware that we have a plaque in the church about the United Daughters of the Confederacy which displays Confederate flags. We have all probably walked by it hundreds of times without noticing it. Photos of the plaque and of its location are included below.
After thoughtful and prayerful consideration, at our Vestry meeting this week, we voted unanimously to remove the plaque and to offer it to the United Daughters of the Confederacy, where we feel it more appropriately belongs. Our considerations for this decision were as follows.
All other plaques in our worship space are either memorials to servicemen who served in or who were killed in the World Wars, or dedications to revered church staff members, or memorials given in remembrance of parishioners recognizing major gifts of church furnishings. This one plaque stands out from the rest by having been placed by an outside secular organization, about a parishioner’s service to that organization, and without there being any other connection to the parish to explain its presence there. Inquiries did not turn up information about the circumstances of its placement in the church. Two current parishioners who are related to Ms. Bolling were not opposed to the plaque’s removal. We also felt that the timing of this action was best now, during the interim time, rather than handing it on to the new Rector upon their arrival.
Please feel free to contact me, your Wardens, or other Vestry members, if you would like to talk about our decision.
God’s Peace,
Bill Queen, Interim Rector
Thomas Ewers, Senior Warden
Barbara Derry, Junior Warden
The Vestry
