Dear Editor,

In a March 6, 2015 Los Angeles Times article titled “Selma, 50 years after march, remains a city divided” reported “In 2000, during his time on the City Council, [Glenn] Sexton and two other council members used city funds to help pay for a statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.”

The article goes on to say “It’s going to be nothing but a n***** street party,” Sexton said, using an epithet still heard on the streets here. He went on to describe participants in the march – both the one in 1965 and a reenactment this Sunday – with a torrent of vulgarities.”

Until the white leadership in Selma who really want unity publicly denounce by name people who espouse racist views, Selma will never heal.

Why should black Selma silence Rose Sanders from speaking about the behavior of these type people when time and time again they prove her right?

Until white people of good will stop these racists from insulting 80 percent of the community, don’t you know there will always be division?

If white Selma does not come clean with white Selma and black Selma does not come clean with black Selma, there will never be a lasting unity with peace.

Johnnie Leashore
Selma