South Carolina editorial roundup: Friday, Feb. 12, 2021

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Recent editorials from South Carolina newspapers:

The Times and Democrat

Feb. 8

Marking Feb. 8 as a day of memoriam in Orangeburg

"The annual memorial service must continue to be a foundation for better relations among the races, not the root of increased tension in the Orangeburg community."

In 1999, 250 Orangeburg citizens, Black and white, used a full-page advertisement in The Times and Democrat to urge this community to cease the divisiveness over the tragic events of 1968, to use Feb. 8 every year as a day of memoriam and respect.

"Orangeburg, let us heal ourselves …" remains necessary today after the deaths of Henry Smith, Samuel Hammond and Delano Middleton on Feb. 8, 1968.

The three students were shot to death and 28 others were hurt by state troopers during a prolonged confrontation centered around the desegregation of an Orangeburg bowling alley. It is known as the "Orangeburg Massacre" after the title of a book by journalists Jack Bass and Jack Nelson.

The milestone statement of 1999 sought to put an end to the seemingly endless cycle of rewriting the accounts of that night - a cycle that annually produced new wounds in Orangeburg and elsewhere.

The statement acknowledged the importance of remembering Smith, Hammond and Middleton and asked that the remembrance "be kept to the dignity for which it is intended - a solemn observance of that tragic night in 1968."

"It should not be marred by creating a day of racial hatred in Orangeburg by those of either race who try to rewrite the chronicle of events of that unforgettable incident," the statement said.

The years since 1999 have produced significant events. Two years after the Orangeburg declaration, then-Gov. Jim Hodges spoke at the memorial service, expressing official regret for what happened here in 1968. For the first time, Highway Patrol troopers were in attendance.

Then in 2003, Gov. Mark Sanford surprised many by issuing a formal apology. "I think it's appropriate to tell the African-American community in South Carolina that we don't just regret what happened in Orangeburg 35 years ago - we apologize for it."

It is important that people never forget what happened in Orangeburg on Feb. 8, 1968. Our community is forever linked with a historic tragedy.

In the spirit of the 1999 declaration, Orangeburg remains a place that can be a model for cooperation among races.

When Mercer University Press in 2002 released a revised edition of the "Orangeburg Massacre," a new postscript by the authors noted the story "has taken on new life and a path toward healing and reconciliation."

It is a path upon which our community must pledge to remain as we remember and foster unity where there has been division.

The Post and Courier

Feb. 4

South Carolina trees should be protected for our future

At the same time scientists and climatologists are providing us ever more specific information about how trees play a crucial role in minimizing flooding and easing global warming, South Carolina seems to be losing them as fast as ever. At least that's the impression gleaned from recent Post and Courier articles that detailed regrettable losses due to development, highway safety, invasive beetle species and power lines.

Each story chronicled unrelated efforts to remove trees - including some for understandable, if not easily embraceable, reasons. Our concern is with the cumulative effect South Carolina's growing population and prosperity are having on our collective tree cover, particularly in developed areas where its loss is seen by most.

Last year, the newspaper's Rising Waters project outlined how Charleston County has lost more than 10,800 wooded acres to development since 1990, a loss that has worsened flooding and the impacts of climate change. And Charleston County is a state leader when it comes to local governments' actions to protect trees. The county and its largest municipalities restrict the removal of large trees and require new trees to be planted when a large, healthy tree is cut down. We're glad to see more governments taking a similar approach, including the city of Greenville, which is poised to protect "heritage trees," those between 20 inches and 40 inches in diameter.

Still, even in Charleston, one of the first cities to pass a tree ordinance, about 170 palmettos are at risk because Dominion Energy says they're growing into power lines and creating a fire hazard (separate and distinct from the hazard some large trees pose to power lines during storms with heavy winds). The city's response - to look at changing its policy for placing power lines underground to allow smaller projects instead of only neighborhood-wide ones - is a good step, one that might save a few existing trees, or at least future ones, by removing the power lines instead.

In southern Charleston County, thousands of other trees are at risk because they're infested with Asian long-horned beetles, a problem that's existed there for several years. About 430 trees have had to be cut down so far because that's the only way to limit the problem. Clemson Extension Service and the S.C. Forestry Commission are looking for resources to provide trees for a replanting program to help offset the loss, an effort we applaud.

Meanwhile, the players within the S.C. Department of Transportation who see the trees in the median of Interstate 26 as more of a fatal hazard to wayward motorists than a healthy, attractive corridor now have the upper hand, as clearing that median continues its lamentable creep toward I-95. Some have said this is justifiable partly because the trees will need to come down eventually during a widening project many years from now; we disagree.

This is not just about shade and aesthetics (though the value of beauty should never be discounted); U.S. Forest Service research in the Francis Marion National Forest north of Mount Pleasant found trees captured about 70% of rainfall there and returned the moisture to the atmosphere. Less than a third flowed out via rivers and creeks. While that's a large-scale example, it's clear the loss of a hundred trees here and a few hundred there only will increase the amount of stormwater we're all struggling to deal with.

The more our population grows, the more people there are who find reasons this tree or that tree needs to go - and the more we risk losing a feature that helps make the Lowcountry unique.

What this region and this state need are more enlightened elected officials and corporate policies that seek to preserve our trees, and more advocacy groups urging us, and them, to plant, restore and protect trees.

The Index-Journal

Feb. 4

Impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump

An editorial is generally written with the intent of taking a stand one way or the other.

Allow us, if you will, or at least forgive us as we wade into one of those "on one hand and on the other" viewpoints.

It's not that we're in the Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Kevin McCarthy, Marjorie Greene camp on the matter of impeaching former President Trump. Rather, it's that we cannot help but wonder if it's all really worth the exercise. And whether there'll be sufficient support for a guilty verdict.

Yes, we have said and yet say - unlike Graham, McCarthy and others - that Trump absolutely had a role in the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol. First Amendment or not, words are powerful and should be chosen carefully, especially when you're the leader of this great nation. And as the leader, there are plenty of ears listening and plenty of people ready to carry out what they clearly believe are not only condoned actions but, in essence, marching orders.

If Trump is found guilty, it certainly cinches the deal many hope for in not only holding him accountable for the acts of insurrection, but also in preventing the former president from ever holding elected office again. But the impeachment trial also stands to reignite the fire Trump lit. And the proceedings tend to keep the former president in a limelight he no doubt enjoys. Good or bad, PR is PR and serves a purpose.

What if, instead, our leaders in the halls of Congress and the Senate decided enough is enough? What if they said what is needed now is less focus on the past and more on our country's future?

What if we put some stock in the American people to believe that any aspirations Trump had to be elected again would be dashed by the voters? That even some of Trump's staunchest supporters truly saw the constant lies about a stolen election and the fomenter role Trump played leading up to and on Jan. 6 and could no longer rally behind his bid for office?

And then, rather than talk of impeachment, voters could regain some sanity and concentrate on replacing the wafflers, the political barnacles that attach themselves to extremism, folly and insurrection.

Trump is gone. He should not return to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. And now, Capitol Hill can and should concentrate on cleaning up and weeding out, with help from the voters.