The ceremonies associated with this burial are to last more than a week. Ten days before the April 17 funeral in Charleston, the eight Hunley sailors are to lie in state for three days at the Statehouse in Columbia. For another five days, the bodies are to lie in state at four sites in the Charleston area.
A decent burial is in order. But the level of extravagance being planned in the highest echelons of South Carolina government is about a whole lot more than burying old sailors. It is about South Carolina's greatest weakness: the reverence of a regrettable, pro-slavery past that to this day shackles the state.
South Carolina needs to look forward, not backward. Until South Carolina's leaders understand how tone-deaf they are to the needs, desires and hopes of the descendants of slaves, the state will never live up to its potential.
There is a tie between the mindset that clings to the long-dead Confederacy and the policies that continue to leave many behind. The link shows up in many statistical disparities between whites and blacks.
Grant it that personal responsibility plays the key role in what happens to South Carolinians in life. But there is something else wrong when South Carolina chronically lags national standards in health, wealth and learning.
There are vast differences in the numbers of blacks and whites incarcerated in South Carolina, with some legislative leaders saying there are more black men in jail each spring than there are graduating from college.
Blacks are not being elected or appointed to high offices and state government management positions to remotely reflect the overall racial makeup of the state.
The reasons for these disparities are complex. But when state leaders cling to the vestiges of the Confederacy almost 150 years after its demise, South Carolina will not reach its financial, educational or social goals.
The Confederacy is an important part of the state's history, but it is over. Its reason for being and its symbols are painful to at least a third of today's state population. Leaders must know that, and act accordingly. Confederate sailors should not lie in state in the Statehouse because the government they represented is -- or should be -- as dead as they are. It is not -- or should not be -- considered a part of today's government, which is represented by the Statehouse. The divisiveness and flawed viewpoints that led to the Civil War and to the deaths of the eight sailors should not be fueled by today's state leaders.
The fact that there is a petition to ban the American flag from the Charleston ceremonies because it is the flag of the Hunley sailors' "eternal enemy, the United States of America" should be telling organizers of this Confederate extravaganza that they are going down the wrong path.
Our Statehouse, and tax dollars, should not play even a remote role in aiding the absurd philosophies of fringe groups.
It is a small favor that state Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, a ringleader of the planned ceremonies, sees as offensive the contention that the U.S. flag is an "eternal enemy." If he can see that, he also should see that burial ceremonies for the Confederate dead should be carried out privately. That one insight by South Carolina leaders would give this state a brighter future.