The debate over removing Confederate statues continues to rage. I’d make a couple of points in reply. On June 4, many Black Lives Matter protesters gathered around the famous statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia. Virginia has more than 220 public memorials to the Confederacy, according to the governor’s office. As protests against racism and police violence spread across the nation, demonstrators in at least six cities focused their anger on symbols of the Confederacy, seizing the opportunity to mar Confederate statues and monuments that have ignited debate for years. But this should be done lawfully, not via mob action. Protesters outraged over the death of Mr. Floyd are targeting some that remained. Like in a tale from Shakespeare, he brought it on himself. Many statues and monuments can be re-located to museums where a much of history is saved, or to private historical sites, cemeteries, or to the families of the artists who created aolstatues. On Monday, a day after protesters began chipping away at the statue’s base, Mayor Randall Woodfin, over the objections of the state’s attorney general, ordered a crew to finish the job. Allen Guelzo:Right. No charge. But as the source of those names becomes more widely known, it’s going to be harder to ask African-American soldiers willing to sacrifice life and limb for their country to look past them. On Tuesday, Alabama’s attorney general, Steve Marshall, announced that the state had filed a lawsuit against the city over its removal of the monument. Many of the monuments were vandalized with spray paint; protesters tried to topple others from their bases. The Robert E. Lee statue at the center of the 2017 protests in Charlottesville, Va., still stands, surrounded by a small plastic construction fence and “No Trespassing” signs. US: Confederate Statues Likely To Go Undisturbed In SC In 2021 The Heritage Act mentions a wide range of events from the Revolutionary War to the Persian Gulf War. Confederate statues shouldn’t be vandalized, but they should go. For me, Both statues Confederate or Communist can stay or both can be taken down. The controversy pits those affected by the bitter memory of … It’s a murky situation that could see none other than Vice President Harris preside. The United Daughters of the Confederacy did not respond to a request for comment. United States Confederate Statues, symbols, and memorials debate thread. In the wave of cancellations sweeping America, Confederate statues have been particularly hard hit. The school’s chancellor said planning had begun months ago to relocate the statue from the center of campus. As debate over the takedown of Confederate monuments continues, 60 Minutes examines why and when the statues went up in the first place 2018 Jul 15 Correspondent Anderson Cooper I deplore vandalism, but no one should shed a tear for the removal of Confederate statues erected to nullify the emancipation of the Black Americans that the Civil War had accomplished. But after years of debate, the statue was recently removed. Confederate statues and symbols deserve to be reevaluated, and often mothballed. the Confederate Defenders of Charleston statue, erected in 1932, a Confederate monument at the State Capitol, dozens of plaques, statues and other monuments to the Confederacy, at least 138 Confederate symbols have been removed, wrote a public letter to the town’s mayor, legal battle between the state attorney general and the city, planning had begun months ago to relocate the statue. “Alexandria, like all great cities, is constantly changing and evolving," the city’s mayor, Justin Wilson, said on Twitter, sharing images of its removal. In Oxford, Miss., the words “spiritual genocide,” along with red handprints, were painted on a Confederate monument on the University of Mississippi campus on Saturday, The Oxford Eagle reported. Push To Remove Confederate Monuments Opens Debate On Other Honored Historical Figures Statues have been taken down. The Richmond statue of Lee, which Virginia governor Ralph Northam has said is coming down, has long been a point of contention. A toppled statue of Charles Linn, a city founder who was in the Confederate Navy, in Birmingham, Ala., on Monday, following a night of protests. Northam is expected to announce plans on Thursday for the removal of the Lee statue, according to an administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the move had not yet been publicly announced. The mayor, Bob Rogers, said the memorial sits on land owned by Calloway County and not the city. Gov. Last, with the usual defenses for Confederate statues and monuments debunked, the remaining and most likely reason for keeping these monuments is (a) an implicit denial that the Confederacy was wrong, (b) a proxy for racial resentment, or (c) all of the above. About 100 miles south of Huntsville, Birmingham’s Confederate monument had been covered since last year amid a legal battle between the state attorney general and the city. In the weeks after Charlottesville, dozens of plaques, statues and other monuments to the Confederacy were challenged or removed from public places across the country. The group has estimated that at least 138 Confederate symbols have been removed from public spaces since 2015, when it started tracking them after a white supremacist killed nine black congregants at a church in Charleston, S.C. “There has been a consistent drive, primarily in the South, to remove these monuments,” Ms. Brooks said. In Memphis, the fight is about the removal statues from a park that portray Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest, President Jefferson Davis and a Confederate war correspondent. In Huntsville, Ala., where protesters gathered on Monday to demand the removal of a Confederate monument from the grounds of the Madison County Courthouse, according to AL.com, a group of business owners wrote to the city on Tuesday asking that it be moved. When I first read the debate resolution, I thought of the confederate statues I’ve seen in downtown Wilmington. “It would seem,” he wrote sarcastically, “that the soldier who kills the most men in battle, even in a bad cause, is the greatest Christian, and entitled to the highest place in heaven.”. A football coach in Murray, Ky., wrote a public letter to the town’s mayor on Tuesday asking for the removal of a statue of Lee — and offered to help take it down himself. As part of the University of Michigan’s Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Symposium, the Ford School of Public Policy hosted a talk Monday afternoon to discuss the national debate over confederate statues and their place on American soil. “I am no longer willing to accept state-sponsored symbols of institutional racism in my community.”, In an interview, Mr. Neal said he wrote the letter because “you don’t get opportunities like this in history more than once in a lifetime to take action that can result in a change.”. The official spoke on Wednesday, the same day Richmond’s mayor said he would propose removing additional Confederate monuments from the state capital. This impulse, though, is a mistake. By Liz Hardin. Sheelagh McNeill contributed research. The theory of states’ rights that the Confederacy used to justify secession wasn’t meant to preserve our constitutional scheme, but to demolish it. Following the protests and death of George Floyd, the governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, has promised to remove the Confederate statues on Monument Avenue. Confederate monuments debate heads to the courts. Alan Dershowitz Makes an Unpersuasive Argument against Late Impeachment Trials, Fourteenth Amendment Worries Should Not Stop Republican Senators from Convicting Trump, Fauci Refutes Biden Admin Claim that Trump Left ‘No Plan’ for Vaccine Distribution, On Day One, the Biden White House Dodges on Abortion. If confederate statues come down, Communist statues should come down also (like they did in Ukraine, And Poland). They reflexively oppose politically correct campaigns to destroy anything giving offense. It is impossible to evaluate these monuments without considering the context of why they were created. Secession was a traitorous act that threatened to destroy the American nation, and the South’s leaders don’t deserve to be given a place of honor. Stuart, Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee, all of which stand on the city’s Monument Avenue, were marked. Penn State’s Joshua F.J. Inwood and Derek H. Alderman study the way memory and places interact with trauma. Since then, there has been no unified plan for what to do with these landmarks. On the other side, opponents of the statues argue that they celebrate white supremacy. On Wednesday, the House approved legislation to remove Confederate statues from the Capitol building. A state law passed this year, which goes into effect on July 1, gives local governments the ability “to remove, relocate, or contextualize the monuments in their communities.”, “These monuments tell a particular version of history that doesn’t include everyone,” Governor Ralph S. Northam said when he signed the legislation in April. George Floyd Protests Reignite Debate Over Confederate Statues. It’s even affecting an Aggieland staple. Still, supporters fought until the end and pointed out how the former Confederate officer changed his views on race later in life. Some have been auctioned, moved, stored, covered or dismantled in recent years; others have remained while legal challenges have played out or failed. Big statues in prominent public spaces erected to make a point about the supposed glories of the Confederacy should be transferred elsewhere (ideally to museums or battlefields). So, can you just give us an overview of how cities ended up erecting Confederate statues after the Civil War? Debate over US Confederate monuments intensifies. “In Virginia, that version of history has been given prominence and authority for far too long.”. Sometime this month, Botetourt County supervisors will be formally presented with a proposal to move the Confederate monument in front of the … The tragic events in Charlottesville, Virginia, have re-ignited debate about the place of Confederate monuments in public spaces, as well as related conversations about the role of Confederate, neo-Nazi, and white supremacist imagery in American political culture.The AHA has released the following statement about the role of history and historians in these public conversations. A vote from the U.S. House of Representatives has caused quite the debate online. Secession was a traitorous act that threatened to destroy the American nation, to create a rump republic built on slavery, and to make impossible the subsequent rise of the United States to a world power. Ryan M. Kelly/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images. The shocking summer of 2017 was an inflection point in Virginia’s long-running debate over its Confederate symbols, pushing Democratic politicians to take stronger stands on a topic previously seen as taboo. In Alexandria, Va., just outside Washington, D.C., a Confederate statue that had been slated to be removed next month was taken down on Tuesday. The statues are an unnecessary affront to black citizens, who shouldn’t have to see defenders of chattel slavery put on a pedestal, literally. The tragic events in Charlottesville, Virginia, have re-ignited debate about the place of Confederate monuments in public spaces, as well as related conversations about the role of Confederate, neo-Nazi, and white supremacist imagery in American political culture.The AHA has released the following statement about the role of history and historians in these public conversations. But in its more than 20 years on the books in South Carolina, it has almost exclusively protected Confederates and segregationists. Confederate monuments that survived the protests are facing renewed scrutiny as protesters, angered by the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25, have taken to the streets in at least 140 cities across the country. The idea had been developed by former vice president John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, who believed the country had set off on an erroneous, nationalist path from the very beginning. They think the original intention of most Confederate statues – and the context in which they were built in the years after the Civil War – make it tough to defend keeping them in place: While it certainly doesn’t solve problems of inequality that exist today, removing memorials that continue to “exact a painful toll on the sense o… George Floyd Protests Reignite Debate Over Confederate Statues Dozens came down after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017. Its leaders don’t deserve to be given a place of honor in our landscape denied to worthier men. The protests at the Confederate capital was focused on the removal of statues on Monument Avenue. Confederate statues, which sentimentalise and glorify the “lost cause” of the civil war, were put up to bolster all that. “While we respect the opinions of all of our citizens, we are simply not in a position to legally pursue any efforts with regard to the Robert E. Lee Confederate Memorial,” Mr. Rogers said on Wednesday. “The conversation has never really died,” said Lecia Brooks, outreach director at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala. In response, at least two cities this week have seen them removed from public spaces. Then, according to news reports, they tried to topple it. Confederate statues shouldn’t be vandalized, but they should go. (Dustin Chambers/Reuters) Kyle has written a fantastically well-done (of course) piece in response to my column arguing against Confederate statues. Statues of the Confederate generals J.E.B. I’ve lived in Wilmington since 1980. Conservatives tend to think the same way. ... For the past two years, activists in Memphis, Tennessee, have campaigned to have a pair of Confederate statues removed from the … In Norfolk, Va., on Saturday, protesters climbed a 15-foot figure of a Confederate soldier and spray-painted its base. They value tradition and worry we are trashing part of our history. According to the poll, in August 2017, 39% supported the removal of Confederate statues compared to 52% who wanted to get rid of them in June. Besides, the South supported states’ rights only to the extent that they were useful in protecting slavery. For his part, President Donald Trump has been a steadfast defender of the statues and other forms of recognition of the Confederacy. Its 1890 unveiling was a key moment in the creation of a cult of Lee as a man of “moral strength and moral beauty,” as a speaker put it that day. The Confederacy didn't approve slaves actively joining the Army until the beginning of 1865, after tumultuous debate in their Congress, and only a year after Patrick Cleburne was nearly censured for … January 30, 2018 by Scott Bomboy . Dozens came down after a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017. Gay Marriage: An Analysis of Both Sides of the Debate. People on both sides vigorously defend their position, pointing out disturbing facts about the Founding Fathers and the founding of America as reasons why the Confederate monuments aren’t so different from Revolutionary monuments. 28 Jun 2017 In North Carolina, a Confederate monument at the State Capitol in Raleigh was marked with a black X. Many of them were erected as part of the push to enshrine a dishonest, prettied-up version of the Confederacy. In Confederate statue debates, common values can bring meaningful resolution. It insisted, after all, on a federal Fugitive Slave Act. “The tragic killing of George Floyd has magnified the deep pain experienced by African-American and other members of our community,” the group wrote. Removing the statue from Linn Park, he said, would “prevent more civil unrest.”. The Great Courses:Since there’s a lot of debate going on now in the country about the status of Confederate statues, we thought it would be interesting to talk to you both about some of the historical background of these statues. Mihir Zaveri, Christopher Mele and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs contributed reporting. He said he did not know what the group planned to do with the statue. Even as workers arrived to tidy up the destruction, the protests have freshened the conversation around the fate of these controversial memorials, many of which have been the subject of legal challenges, especially in the years since a deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 over the city’s plan to remove a statue of Lee. This includes the removal of statues of anyone who voluntarily served the Confederacy, and it would force states to replace such figures in the National Statuary Hall Collection. Debate over US Confederate monuments intensifies While activists fight for removal of Confederate monuments, far-right groups turn them into venues for confrontations. It’s John Brennan’s Authoritarianism That Threatens Democracy, Media Bootlickers Hurl Themselves at Biden’s Feet, Trump Trial Puts Fundamental Question to Chief Justice Roberts, Ted Cruz Denounces Trump’s ‘Rhetoric’ during Riot. Protest signs at the Confederate Monument at Stone Mountain Park in Stone Mountain, Ga., June 16, 2020. Finally, learning about, say, Robert E. Lee doesn’t require staring up at a 60-foot-tall statue of him on a major Richmond, Va., thoroughfare. Direct commemorations of the Confederate war dead — obelisks with lists of names, Confederate cemeteries — should be preserved to mark the human cost of a terrible conflict. How Conflict Resolution Can Help in the Debate Over Confederate Statues. The event was live streamed on Youtube to an audience of more than 500. “I am a black male,” the coach, Sherman Neal II, wrote. They fear where the slippery slope of woke iconoclasm will lead — first it’s Jefferson Davis, ultimately George Washington. And in Birmingham, Ala., on Sunday, protesters spray-painted the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument, a 52-foot-tall sandstone obelisk, and chipped at its base. Confederate monuments in Gettysburg spark debate among historians ... Martz argued there’s a difference between the statues coming down across the country and the ones in Gettysburg. In his notorious Cornerstone Speech in 1861, he said the new government was built on “the great truth” of slavery. They have been graffitied, assaulted, and torn down, while authorities rush to remove them. ‘I think, yesterday in particular, the president's language and rhetoric crossed the line and it was reckless,’ Cruz said. 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