How far will U.S. go to erase public markers of slave past?

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – What’s next?

The Confederate flag seems to be falling surprisingly easily now. And the spirit of the moment is spreading to other icons of the Civil War, seen now through a different lens cast in the events of Charleston.

But where does the nation go next, and how far will it go, in erasing the public markers of slavery 150 years after the end of the Civil War?

The clarity of the Confederate battle flag was one thing. It was visible in photos of the man accused of killing nine black Americans at prayer in a Charleston church. It remained flying briskly, seemingly defiantly, atop its flagpole at the South Carolina state capitol while the state and federal flags were at half staff in mourning.

It gets harder step by step to know now where to draw the line.

There’s a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and early leader of the Klan. There are the U.S. Army bases named for other confederate generals. There are statues of Confederacy president Jefferson Davis and his “presidential” library. There are the schools named for Gen. Robert E. Lee. And finally there are the slave owning Founding Fathers.

Will some go? All? Which ones?

“There is no end to it,” said former Georgia Rep. Ben Lewis Jones, now chairman of Heritage Operations for the Sons of Confederate Veterans. “Cultural cleansing – that’s the name for removing history that is not liked.”

Since the Charleston shootings, he said, the number of requests to take down confederate flags and other objects has increased exponentially.

Some scholars worry that the moves will make it easier to forget the offenses of slavery and those who fought for it.

“They are hiding the history,” said Sam Fulwood, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank. “It makes it easier for people to pretend it didn’t happen.”

He said communities should erect more statues named after other people such as civil rights leaders instead of taking down the ones named after objectionable people.

Others want to change course, saying the country has done more than remember the Confederacy.

“We should stop honoring the Confederacy,” said Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center.