Now that South Carolina has finally been shamed into taking down the horrid Confederate battle flag from the grounds of its statehouse and moving it to a museum, maybe the rest of the South can start dealing with equally vile vestiges of the Civil War that continue to litter parks, courthouses, universities and other public places.

There are statues of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson in numerous cities, including Baltimore, Dallas, New Orleans, Manassas, Va. and Richmond, Va., where Monument Avenue features sculptures of the two generals along with other Civil War “heroes.”

Statues honoring Confederacy President Jefferson Davis are even more prevalent, occupying prominent spaces at the Alabama, Virginia and Kentucky state capitols, as well as in the National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol Building, representing the state of Mississippi. Elsewhere there are Davis statues in Atlanta, Biloxi, Miss.; Memphis, Tenn.; Austin, Texas; Fairview, Kentucky; Fitzgerald, Georgia; Vicksburg, Miss; and Pensacola, Fla.

A number of Southern states celebrate his birthday as either an official holiday or in conjunction with Memorial Day. Several states also celebrate Confederate Memorial Day, and Texas declares Confederate Heroes Day a holiday. Last April a 13-year-old boy tried to persuade Texas lawmakers to change the name to Civil War Remembrance Day, but they used the "part-of-our-heritage" argument to deflect his efforts.

Other attempts to stop lionizing the Confederacy have met with mixed results.

The most promising recently has been in New Orleans, where Mayor Mitch Landrieu and the City Council have started the process to remove various monuments throughout The Big Easy, with a final vote expected in September.

Baltimore, where race riots paralyzed the city in April following the death of a young black man who had been taken into police custody, also has taken a cautious approach about the fate of nine monuments with ties to the Confederate era that are situated among 80 military statues. City officials are planning a series of meetings soon to discuss the matter.

In addition to statues and memorials, there are numerous schools, roads, mountains, lakes, towns and counties below the Mason-Dixon line that are named after the Confederate president, including Jefferson Davis County, Mississippi; Jefferson Davis Parish, Louisiana; Jeff Davis County, Texas; and Jeff Davis County, Georgia.

Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Fort Hood, Texas; and Fort Benning, Georgia, also are all named for Confederate generals. The Pentagon should think about renaming these military installations for officers who didn’t fight against the United States nearly 150 years ago.

As for large memorials, civic authorities must consider ways to change the image they convey, perhaps through new signs and displays. Rather than glorifying past villainy statues should serve as reminders of a tragic era in U.S. history.

Many of these monuments were constructed when the wounds of the Civil War were still fresh, and sadly, some have never healed.

Most disturbing, though, is that a number of symbols of the ignominious past emerged relatively recently. Even the South Carolina flag did not go up until 1961, to mark the 100th anniversary of the Civil War. Until Friday it remained there as a defiant banner of opposition to the civil rights movement, and did not come down until enormous public outcry after the massacre of nine black people at a Charleston church, apparently at the hands of a young, deranged, racist gunman.

We mourn their deaths but take some comfort that they may have inspired change in a state that has stubbornly clung to a repugnant past.

Here’s hoping new attitudes embracing tolerance and unity continue to blossom.