[17] [18] The Lost Cause mythology was used to continue the idea that black people needed to be subjugated for their own good and as justification for Jim Crow laws. History protests Confederate Monuments and Other Disputed Memorials Have Come Down in Cities Across America. According to media reports, at least 11 statues were severely damaged or destroyed during the true civil rebellion in 2017. The shooter was said to have glorified the Confederate South, posing in Facebook photos with the Battle Flag of the Northern Virginia Army (also known now as the Confederate flag, though it never represented the Confederate States) and touring historical Confederate locations before the shooting. The removal of monuments erases the memory of those who fought against them in defense of the values they represent. Ive been studying the impact of Black Lives Matter on statues and memorials around the world for the past few months. Their actions also took a violent turn, as when revolutionaries murdered bishops and priests who refused to sign a loyalty oath. Stephen E. Ambrose, Founding Fathers and Slaveholders, smithsonianmag.com, Nov. 2002, 43. [31], In Louisville, a statue of Confederate soldier John Breckinridge Castleman was removed. It started in the 1890s with the Worlds Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In particular, a lot of our civic buildings our courthouses, our state capitals, even our public squares and parks are in the neoclassical style. Is there a higher moral cause that supersedes the law? Public Symbols of the Confederacy, splcenter.org, Feb. 1, 2019, 15. Despite being recognized around the world as a hero, Columbus statues have long been criticized as a result of his colonization and genocide of Indigenous cultures. SINHA: Exactly. The fact that a particular vice prevailed in a persons place and time becomes an excuse for stripping recognition from people whose lives contradict the propaganda of those in power. For example, The cost to remove all the monuments and statues in New Orleans could cost $600,000. Share This: Over 100 busts, statues, columns, and other memorials to the Confederacy and Confederate general and politicians have been removed around the country. ProCon.org is the institutional or organization author for all ProCon.org pages. The announcement caused a stir because it made it clear that nothing else has been done to honor him until now: no other president has done so. Jackson was a slave owner. Pros And Cons Of Removing Historical Statues - The Onion Slavery is represented in statues by people who distort history and commemorate individuals who perpetuated it. The removal of Confederate statues is a painful reminder of the countrys racist past and present. Confederate Monuments: What Should Replace Them? | Time A petition in Tennessee gained 22,736 signatures (and counting as of July 8, 2020) to replace all Confederate statues in the state, including the statue of Confederate Army General and KKK Grand Wizard Nathan Bedford Forrest that stands in the states capitol building, with statues of Dolly Parton. There are lots of terrible. GORDON-REED: Ha! This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. First, virtually everyone acts in ways consistent with contemporaneous social normsnorms of which later generations may disapprove. Hecho comn is a part of the Venezuelan Revolution that ended with Hugo Chvezs election as President of the Republic of Venezuela (Y). The statues are a painful reminder of past and present institutionalized racism in the United States. George Gerbner, PhD, and Larry Gross coined the term symbolic annihilation in 1976 to describe the lack of representation of a group of people. We can do that. There are many other people who could be represented by statues who would better represent the historical progress and diversity of the country. David Greene talks to Manisha Sinha, professor of American history at the University of Connecticut, about the recent toppling of non-Confederate statues like those of George Washington. Statues of Washington or Grant, et cetera are begging for historical contextualization. Opinion: Don't Take Down Confederate Monuments. Here's Why. GREENE: Historian Manisha Sinha is the author of "The Slave's Cause: A History Of Abolition.". A: My first book (A City of Marble) was about the Roman emperor Augustus and how he used the built environment to shape civic identity at a time of great change for Rome. 5. Robert Draper, Toppling Statues Is a First Step toward Ending Confederate Myths, nationalgeographic.com, July 2, 2020, 24. [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [54], According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), 59 Confederate statues and nine markers or plaques were removed from public land in 19 US states between June 17, 2015 and July 6, 2020. 325 N. LaSalle Street, Suite 200 Those who argue in favor of keeping political statues in public spaces typically make the following points: 1. History is almost never the sole motivator for the construction of schools. When the statues are publicly owned, removing them by wanton destruction still usurps decision-making authority from the public. Richard Allen Greene, King Leopold II Statues Are Being Removed in Belgium. Amanda Holpuch, Ed Pilkington, and Oliver Laughland, Charleston Shooting: Confederate Flag at Heart of Growing Political Storm, theguardian.com, June 20, 2015, 4. At the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth, a significant portion of anti-imperialist and Bolivarian thinking was based on those ideas. The architect Daniel Burnham was a leader in the movement; he went on to do the McMillan Plan for the National Mall in D.C. Should the US remove Confederate memorials, flags, and This article was published on January 20, 2022, at Britannica's ProCon.org, a nonpartisan issue-information source. The rally protested the proposed removal of statues of Confederate Army Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. As contemporaries, Cecil Rhodes and King Leopold II were both harshly criticized for their racist behaviors. Sophia A. Nelson, Opinion: Don't Take Down Confederate Monuments. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Memorials serve as a permanent reminder of our values, as well as a place to honor and display them in public. But thats incredibly problematic. Adam Serwer, The Myth of the Kindly General Lee, theatlantic.com, June 4, 2017, 19. By removing them, we can censor, whitewash, and potentially forget about the history. Answer: We have to distinguish what kind of monuments were talking about. And that was simply not correct. This is why they put them up in the first place; to affirm the centrality of white supremacy to Southern culture. [1], Because the statues were intended to promote white supremacy, Richard Rose, President of Atlantas NAACP, argues, You cant contextualize racism or compromise on racism. He states that the contextualization plaques added to Atlantas Confederate statues establish that racism is valid. [24], The statues still appeal to white supremacists, as demonstrated by the 2017 rally to defend the Lee and Jackson statues in Virginia and in Dylan Roofs 2015 pre-massacre tour of plantations and a Confederate museum. [9] And a statue of black tennis star and Civil Rights activist Arthur Ashe was tagged with white lives matter graffiti in Richmond, Virginia. Proper citation depends on your preferred or required style manual. The ceremony was whites only, and featured children forming a Confederate flag and singing Dixie.. First and foremost, they are part of our history and should be preserved as such. Arguments for why Confederate statues should be removed include the Confederacy's shameful history of treason and white supremacy, as well as the original purpose of these statues, which was to intimidate Black Americans while celebrating white power. If there are statues of black Americans in the future, such as Kehinde Wileys 2019 statue of a black man riding horseback in a pose similar to those of Confederate statues, they could be built. This time also coincided with the creation of many Confederate monuments, though they were coming from a different set of concerns. What Are The Pros and Cons of FHA Loans For Buyers and Sellers Even more importantly, however, erasing monuments of once-revered figures upsets an unspoken but long-prevailing consensus governing our decisions of whom to commemorate. Monuments of people statuary I think come out of a tradition of imitation. Symbolic annihilation can result in society valuing groups of people less and in internalized negativity among those groups. Debate around the removal of memorials and monuments that honor people and ideas whose messages and causes are considered offensive to certain marginalized groups has been a hot-button issue of late in the national conversation. Anti-racist protesters want to remove statues that were erected at the peak of Jim Crow segregation in the United States and at the peak of colonial expansion. Senior Editor at Arc Digital. GORDON-REED: I suppose, if people want to, everything can pave the way to some other point. The Confederate symbols and associated values that Americans hold in high regard are paid for by them. FHA loans have more relaxed credit score requirements than traditional mortgages. Consider the idea of placing the removed statues in museums with the American Alliance of Museums. Mount Vernon, Slavery, mountvernon.org (accessed July 7, 2020), 40. ProCon.org. They serve as a constant reminder of who we are and what we believe in. And dont forgetthe Confederacy lost. Interview was edited for clarity and space. Pros And Cons Of Removing Confederate Statues | ipl.org Khushbu Shah, Atlanta's Confederate Monuments: How Do Context Markers Help Explain Racism?, theguardian.com, Aug. 3, 2019, 25. During the globalBlack Lives Matterprotests in the summer of 2020, calls to take down the statues were met with citizens not only actively damaging or removing statues of Confederate figures, but targeting statues of slave-holdingFounding Fathers in general, as well as historic monuments to Abraham Lincoln and abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass. There is a plaque next to the Peace Monument in Atlanta, Georgia, that states, This monument should no longer serve as a memorial for white Brotherhood. Remove Confederate statues from public places based on the pros and cons. Because civil rights groups have grown in prominence, the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) dedicated a monument to Shepherd, a so-called faithful slave. Were holding them up as a model of civic identity, of what the rest of us should be doing. As a result, the monumentos, as well as the ellos located in the various areas of the city, are erigen within the context of the community. GREENE: Professor, thank you so much for your time. Washington owned over 300, Jefferson over 600, and Grant worked on his wifes family plantation and inherited one slave upon his father-in-laws death. This was before he became president or even commanded the Union Army. While most Americans watch helplessly, ourstateside Taliban vandalizes and removeslong-standing public monuments. 746 Words3 Pages. They harbored cultural bias. They glorify people who were responsible for terrible things. Take away anything that smacks of the sort of imperialist legacy which clearly that statue embodies. A statue of Josphine de Beauharnais, who married Napoleon and became his first wife, was ripped down in Martinique. Ashlie D. Stevens, As Confederate Monuments Come down, What Should Replace Them?, salon.com, June 17, 2020, 27. We see this in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol. Statues play a critical role in society. GORDON-REED: No. MANISHA SINHA: It always astonished me as a Civil War historian to see statues commemorating Confederate generals and politicians who had literally committed treason against this country in order to uphold human bondage. Photo courtesy of Getty Images/iStockphoto, (480) 965-9657
His disreputable actions reflected attitudes and practices common to his society. Despite Nicole Douglas' team-leading 14th goal of the season, the Sun Devil soccer team was unable to claim its first Pac-12 victory of the season after falling to the Oregon State Beavers, 2-1 on Thursday night. New York Times, From 2017: Confederate Monuments Are Coming down dcross the United States. Ultimately, as far as who gets to decide, I think activism is what gets it done. Keep reading for all the pros and cons of removing Confederate statues. The renewed division between the two civil rights groups followed the war. These loans are available for those with a credit score of at least 500. All rights reserved. They can be seen as a form of propaganda. GAZETTE: What about the slippery slope argument? There is one major distraction when it comes to removing statues that detracts from the larger issue at hand: the notion that removing a statue is an act of historical cleansing. Arguments For And Against Removing Confederate Statues - Ranker What did the Civil War mean for both the Union and the Confederacy? Many people believe that these statues and monuments are inciting white supremacy and promoting violence. The Confederate statues have no redeeming qualities to them, but other statues certainly do. A few years ago, the nation stood watch as Confederate statues started tumbling down at the hands of protestors or at the direction of city officials, seeking peace and reckoning mainly throughout the South after the deaths of Black men at the hands of police and other racial injustices. Rebecca Klar, Arthur Ashe Statue on Richmond's Monument Avenue Tagged with White Lives Matter Graffiti, thehill.com, June 17, 2020, 50. Why the Christopher Columbus Statue Came Down in Chicago Alexander Stephens, vice president of the Confederacy, was completely clear about its goal: The cornerstone [of the Confederate States of America] rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.. It is not possible to have them live in a single location at the same time. 2. What do you think of that idea? Pros And Cons Of The Removal Of Confederate Statues | Bartleby "Historic Statue Removal Top 3 Pros & Cons." These figures were not commonly known to be ridden by equestrians. What Should Take Their Place? [42], Jefferson is the author of two of our most dear principles as a country: equality and religious freedom. We should be able to discuss these historical figures and discuss what we admire about them and what we don't admire so much. ONLY FOR REPUBLICANS. Effective Ways to Save on your Mobile Data, The Law Enforcement Exception To The Use Of Deadly Force, Swearing At Police Officers Is Not Appropriate In Massachusetts, Everything You Need To Know About Car Insurance Companies And Police Reports, The Police In Nigeria Have The Authority To Arrest Without A Warrant Under Certain Circumstances. Kelly Grovier, Black Lives Matter Protests: Why Are Statues So Powerful?, bbc.com, June 12, 2020, 26. Annette Gordon-Reed, a historian of U.S. slavery, legal scholar, and member of the Presidential Initiative on Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery, spoke with the Gazette about the issue. A statue of Lord Charles Colston was erected in Britain more than 60 years before slavery was abolished there. The Robert E. Lee monument, erected several decades after the Civil War to commemorate the Confederate general, was recently removed following more than a year of protests for racial justice. As for museums, people I know who work in museums tear their hair out about this suggestion, that somehow, were going to ship all these Confederate monuments off to the lucky museum that has to find a place to put them. During the French Revolution, for example, mobs tore down statues in Catholic Churches. Theres no doubt that with regime change, monuments are removed, place names are changed, portraits are added to postal stamps, and textbook content changes. The idea is, this is a statue of a civil leader, and they are someone whose virtue or deeds were meant to emulate as citizens. On July 13, 2022, a statue of Mary McLeod Bethune was dedicated in Florida in place of the Confederate soldier statue. He was also an abolitionist, though a hypocritical and pragmatic one who understood the country would not give up slavery so easily. Gary Younge is a professor of sociology at the University of Manchester. [35]. The statues are also seen as ahistorical and ahistorical in depicting people who contributed to slavery, attempted to secede from the United States, and fought for independence from the United States. Since Black Lives Matter protests began in response to Columbuss legacy, a number of statues of him have been removed. Plaques can describe the history of slavery and the Civil War, as well as the white supremacist legacy that led to the creation of such monuments. The 12th of October 2004 marks the beginning of a new era in Venezuela. There was the thought that these immigrants needed to be turned into productive workers, and that concern is where a lot of our public spaces come from. The racial subjugation systems he developed as a principal architect are still prevalent in southern Africa. In later years, Lee alsodistinguished himself as an educator: As president of the institution that is nowWashington and Lee University, he was largely responsible for fashioning the modern college honor code. The toppling of Edward Colston's statue in Bristol has led to a heated debate about memorialisation and what those statues say about their respective societies. Go toProCon.orgto learn more. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. Must we allow symbols of racism on public land? Da de la Raza was founded in 1578 to end the Spanish race and promote the civilizing movement that followed it. These are various statues across the US which honor Confederate leaders or "heroes". [26]. Lets argue about the facts, lets put them down on paper or on a marker and have a conversation about them. [24], Geoff Palmer, Scotlands first black professor, who disagrees with taking down the statues, warned against being distracted by the simple, concrete action of taking down statues: We dont want to leave this so that people looking back in 50 years will say: you know, they took the statues down, why didnt they do something about racism? [53]. Theyre models of civic behavior that we should all strive to. The statues in major British cities are being reviewed. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. While the debate whetherConfederatestatues should be taken down has been gaining momentum for years, the issue gained widespread attention after the June 17, 2015, mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. And then he went on, in fact, to defeat the Confederacy, which was extremely important in the destruction of slavery. Monticello, Jefferson's Attitudes toward Slavery, monticello.org (accessed July 7, 2020), 41. John Daniel Davidson, Why We Should Keep The Confederate Monuments Right Where They Are, thefederalist.com, Aug. 18, 2017, 37. This equates to 1.57 jobs, $76,000 in wages and $14,101 in tax revenues for every 1,000 tons of material recycled. The monument divided the African American community, exposing various political philosophies on how to deal with white supremacy. Citizens have the right to express themselves in ways that respect their personal beliefs by creating statues and holding controversial opinions. The stone sentinels that dot our landscape serve as artifacts of the past, providing us with a visual sign of where we may still go. They represent the establishments value system at any given time, regardless of the circumstances. Defunding the humanities, cutting history classes and departments. The United States was far from perfect, but the values of the Confederacy, open and unrepentant white supremacy and total disregard for the humanity of black people, to the extent they still exist, have produced tragedy and discord. Valerie Strauss, Christopher Columbus: 3 Things You Think He Did That He Didnt, washingtonpost.com, Oct. 14, 2013, 22. And while it is true that many of the Virginian Founding Fathers - Washington, Jefferson, Madison - all owned slaves, we put up their statues not to commemorate their slave holding but for different reasons. Any statue removal may result in the removal of monuments from any individual with a problematic history. However, they have also been the centre of much heated debates surrounding their significance. PRO AND CON: Should Confederate monuments be removed? When activists deface statues, ultimately what theyre doing is forcing the citys hand so that they either have to put money into restoration, which doubles down on whatever message that monument is sending, or they can just remove it. Many celebrities have asked that their names be added to the list over the years, including David Beckham, Bill Morris, Mary Seacole, Benny Hill, and Paul Gascoigne. There are statues of people all over the place, and they should be removed. Q: How do we decide what stays and what goes? Since the election of President Donald Trump, there has been an increased push to remove Confederate statues and monuments. Each of Trafalgar Squares four plinths will house four statues of Horatio Nelson. Historic Statue Removal - Pros & Cons - ProCon.org One claim for not removing certain statues of people who have committed egregious acts is that we should not treat people of another time as if they were second-rate citizens. Gordon-Reed is a professor of history and the Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard Law School. The Avalon Project, Confederate States of America - A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union, avalon.law.yale.edu (accessed July 8, 2020), 16. But so did tens of thousands of others similarly situated. Adolph Hitler gets none, although he was kind to dogs. Bethunes is the first state-commissioned statue of a Black person to be included in Statuary Hall. And thats so important, because future generations will see those images of self-representation of groups that have traditionally been excluded from these monuments making a statement about how colonization has affected them, or how they have survived and are resilient. GREENE: But is there an argument that removing these statues could help further the fight for racial equality in our country? Accessed April 27, 2023. https://www.procon.org/headlines/historic-statue-removal-top-3-pros-cons/, Whose Heritage: Public Symbols of the Confederacy, 1. Jos Vasconcelos and Jos Enrique Rod have been appointed as ambassadors, and they have been actively involved in the work of the United Nations. The Pros and Cons of Pulling Down Statues - Medium Confederate statues were the focus of protests in Richmond, Virginia, last summer. It depends on who the person is and what the objections are. Alex Parsons, Replace All Confederate Statues in Tennessee with Dolly Parton, change.org (accessed July 8, 2020), 31. The SPLC reported at least 160 monuments were removed in 2020 after George Floyds death, more than the prior four years combined At last count, about 704 Confederate monuments remained on public land. Politics, national security, and occasional nerdery. Thus, we honor Columbus by monuments, place names, and a federal holiday. There is no path to a peaceful and prosperous country without challenging and rejecting that as a basis for our society. From a religious/Christian. Instructions for Pros / Cons Paper; Five (5) page essay (2) pages of "pro" and (2) pages of "cons . Scottie Andrew and Anna Sturla, A Statue of Frederick Douglass Was Toppled over the Fourth of July Weekend, the Anniversary of His Famous Speech, cnn.com, July 6, 2020, 10. When we get into Confederate monuments specifically, again, they were purposely put up at times when Blacks were beginning to gain more rights as citizens, and very often, they were erected in public, civic spaces, often on courthouse lawns, specifically to let Black people know that even though, legally, they had more rights, those rights wouldnt be upheld there. Disputation in the political sphere is difficult to come by. Source: Abdazizar. We will know who Robert E. Lee was. A: Thats such a complex issue. Following the white nationalist rally in Virginia on August 12, 2017, it was back in the news. but They Should Remain., washingtonpost.com, Aug. 18, 2017, 39. But the traditional standard does help minimize political manipulation of history. Yet, this is not the first time . I also think it gives credence to the kind of exclusionary work that they already perform. A similar scenario unfolded in 1918 in France, when the imperios took advantage of the French Revolution to gain power. [20] [21] These statues, like their Confederate counterparts, serve a revisionist purpose, allowing people to maintain a racist ideology. I think in general in this country, statues have held up a very white, male virtue. The rally protested the proposed removal of statues of Confederate Army GeneralsRobert E. LeeandStonewall Jackson. They were on the wrong side of history. Here are some top contenders, Stupendous vision, energy, competence, and courage. How do we know if statues are supposed to tell the story of our ancestors? Are you. Why build a street for losers? Psychologically, its perpetuating a system. No one puts a monument up to Washington or Jefferson to promote slavery. You said that moving to statues like George Washington and the Founding Fathers is going from one extreme to another extreme. [37], Lawrence A. Kuznar, PhD, Professor of Anthropology at Indiana UniversityPurdue University Fort Wayne, states, removing Confederate statues amounts to whitewashing our history, turning our heads away from the inconvenient truths of our past. Charisse L'Pree, Racial and Gender Exclusion from Media Affects Novel Group Identity; An Experimental Investigation of Symbolic Annihilation, sites.google.com/site/charisselpree2 (accessed July 8, 2020), 29. Becky Little, How the Cult of Robert E. Lee Was Born, history.com, Aug. 14, 2017, 18. I think the difference that Floyd's murder has made is that most American citizens are finally realizing what they represent. [4], Monuments are ultimately about which values we want to honor and put on public display. 4. The video of the officer with his knee on George Floyds neck was so extreme. They are both excellent candidates for the kind of contextualization you alluded to. History will still be taught. There are pros and cons to removing statues. A global anti-gender movement is coming for our democracy. Chicago, Illinois 60654 USA, Natalie Leppard Despite its relatively small price tag, it is still worth considering, especially when compared to the total cost of the Civil War and its aftermath. In recent years, there has been a growing debate over whether or not political statues should be in public spaces. Last week, protesters swarmed the statue, trying to topple it with two small ropes (seemingly impossible to anyone who has seen the massive monument up close). If your thoughts have not changed, list two to three ways your better understanding of the other side of the issue now helps you better argue your position. GAZETTE: What do you say to those who argue that the removal of such statues in prominent public settings dishonors the memory of those who died fighting for the Confederacy? They should be removed from public spaces because they serve as a reminder of the negative effects of racism and bigotry, as well as a symbol of how far we have come since the colonial era. Make sure to visit the Southern Poverty Law Centers Whose Heritage: Public Symbols of the Confederacy resource. Rob Natelsonisa constitutional historian and former constitutional law professor, serves as asenior fellow in constitutional jurisprudenceat The Independence Institute, the Montana Policy Institute, and The Heartland Institute.
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