Opinion: It’s time to ground all tributes to Charles Lindbergh

The Charles Lindbergh mural at Ninth and Main streets in Ramona.

Hopefully, Ramona will do the right thing and remove this hurtful painting

Dec. 28, 2021 5:32 PM PT

Re “Graffiti damage to two landmark Ramona murals estimated at $7,500” (Dec. 15): Although as an artist I hate to see any work of art defaced, I’m not surprised that someone would react negatively to a mural of Charles Lindbergh.

Not only was he an isolationist who did not want the U.S. to fight the Germans to save England and Europe in World War II, but he was horribly antisemitic. Memorials to people like this should be removed, not restored.

Linda Kelson
Scripps Ranch

It’s unfortunate that Ramona has forgotten American history. It wasn’t without cause that the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority changed the name of Lindbergh Field to the San Diego International Airport in 2003.

While the authority called the name change “a better fit for a major commercial airport,” it was a generally understood “secret” that Lindbergh’s well-known and well-documented virulent antisemitism and agitation for neutrality with Adolf Hitler during WWII was the real reason for the change as San Diego knew that associating its airport with a racist was not conducive to the image San Diego wanted to project to the nation and the world.

I give an onion to Ramona for allowing this larger-than-life-sized painting of Lindbergh to be proudly displayed on the main street of Ramona for so long. Hopefully, Ramona will cowboy up, do the right thing and remove this hurtful painting forever.

Malcolm Jarvis
Del Cerro