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Darryl Owens: Leave Confederate Flags In The Past

A dialogue is underway about the Confederate flag’s place in American society, and it comes as the nation struggles to come to grips with last week’s racially-motivated shooting in Charleston, South Carolina. Nine people were killed at a historic black church. Officials say the shooter, 21-year-old Dylann Roof, embraced the Confederate flag as a symbol of his white supremacist ideology.

Across the American south, people are raising questions about Confederate symbols in their communities, and Central Florida is no exception.

Orlando Sentinel columnist and editorial writer Darryl Owens says Confederate symbols belong in a museum. He examines their meaning, past and present, starting with the controversy brewing over one now standing in downtown Orlando.

Nicole came to Central Florida to attend Rollins College and started working for Orlando’s ABC News Radio affiliate shortly after graduation. She joined WMFE in 2010. As a field reporter, news anchor and radio show host in the City Beautiful, she has covered everything from local arts to national elections, from extraordinary hurricanes to historic space flights, from the people and procedures of Florida’s justice system to the changing face of the state’s economy.