There's been a lot of discussion lately about whether Confederate monuments and memorials should remain in public spaces. Commentary Houseless Residents Say They Were Evicted Without Warning in Richmond. "These statues were meant to create legitimate garb for white supremacy," James Grossman, executive director of the American Historical Association, told NPR. While those innocent individuals were being mourned, Confederate flags, symbols of slavery and oppression, were still being flown at the South Carolina statehouse. Not just statues were erected during this period, either. Just for the record, the last Confederate veteran died in the 1958s. … Wikipedia has a partial list here. Meghan was also a reporter at National Journal, and her work has been featured on CSPAN, MSNBC, NPR, New York Times, and Washington Post. “More than anything, I think we are dealing with questions of historical memory here,” Dickinson said. For example, one poster in the “Monument Avenue Preservation Group” on Facebook put it this way: “Welcome to Soviet Russia, destroy the past and re-write the narrative. But it was the mass protests over the police killing of 46-year-old George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis, that sped action along. The mere idea of removing the statues, however, has activated people who say they want to “preserve” the monuments, arguing that it is “un-American” to remove them. … We’ve tried marches, petitions, protests, going to city council” to get the Confederate monuments removed, said Phil Wilayto, a longtime community organizer and activist with the Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality. In the meantime, protesters in Richmond and other Virginia cities have pulled down statues themselves, including a statue of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy. ONLY a cynical person would reach any other conclusions as to why Confederate Statues Monuments and Markers were erected. It’s from the Southern Poverty Law Center, and it shows us when all those Confederate monuments and statues were erected: This illustrates something that even a lot of liberals don’t always get. Confederate monuments may be a part of history, but not the part of history that most people probably associate them with. Many southerners claim Confederate monuments are a representation of their history and were erected to honor Civil War heroes. It was also a time of great poverty in the region following its loss in the war, and the statues were seen as a way to commemorate a more prosperous past. For many activists, there is a direct line between police brutality that disproportionately kills Black people in America and the racial injustice these monuments embody. Written By While some may argue that the monuments are an important way to preserve American history, many of the statues that depict Civil War heroes were not erected until decades after the war had already ended. Gov. Meghan McCarthy More statues were targeted following protests over the police killing of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis, on May 25, 2020. The reality is that they were erected to support a cause, but not that cause you may think. But there are still plenty of white people in our state who are comfortable arguing, publicly on Facebook, that Confederate statues in the commonwealth should stay standing. "They were built during a period of racial violence and strong beliefs about Anglo-Saxon supremacy," Karen L. Cox, professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, said. A large number of Confederate memorials were constructed in the 1920s, at a time when Civil War veterans, who had long been respected in Southern society, were dying of old age. Before that, Meghan was a cofounder at Morning Consult, where she led the company’s newsroom. A damaged nearly century-old Confederate statue li A damaged nearly century-old Confederate statue lies on a pallet in a warehouse in Durham, N.C. on Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017. Here's What You Need to Know. The COVID-19 Vaccine is Available in Virginia. Jim Crow laws legalized segregation in many states, and essentially made it completely OK for white citizens to discriminate or enact violence against black citizens. Rashid: Why Would You Let Someone Steal Your Money Every Year? What Will New Casino Bring to Norfolk, Pamunkey Tribe? 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, why were Confederate monument erected in the first place? 1911 was a big year for putting up Confederate monuments in a number of states; across the South, numerous statues were erected during the Jim Crow era. These arguments are uniquely ironic, considering the Confederate generals themselves chose to secede from America, an act of treason, and fight a bloody war to keep enslaving Black people. He thought they would make it harder for the country to heal. According to the AHA, most Confederate monuments were erected during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, and this undertaking was "part and parcel of the initiation of legally mandated segregation and widespread disenfranchisement across the South." Another ten monuments were documented in 1866, and 11 more in 1867 by the time the first post-war Confederate monuments were erected in Romney, Hampshire County, West Virginia and Chester, Chester County, South Carolina in 1867. "The fact that they were placed on the grounds of county and state courthouses was intentional. The monuments go up … Rather, Confederate monuments were intended “to celebrate … the re-subjugation of the formerly enslaved and their progeny into the economic peonage and racial caste system of Jim Crow.” All the news you need — right in your inbox, Virginia Sees Immediate Impact From Some of Biden's Executive Orders, Panel Vote Puts Pfizer COVID Vaccine Before FDA for Final Approval, Republicans Have Been Packing the Courts Since Trump Took Office, Xzavier Hill Was Unarmed, Family Says. Activists and some political leaders have tried for years to remove them. But experts believe the monuments were built to send a message promoting white supremacy. Because other motorists had previously hit the monument, the UDC, which had funded and erected the monument in 1910, decided the sculpture would be safer if it was moved to a nearby cemetery. Days after Northam's announcement, a self-admitted Ku Klux Klan leader and alleged Confederate ideologist rammed his pick-up truck into a crowd of Black Lives Matter demonstrators protesting near the statue on Sunday. Activists tore down a Confederate soldier statue in Durham, North Carolina last year. “And it took what is in effect a mass uprising of the community to say these things are not acceptable.”. In many ways, the statues were meant to be a symbol of white supremacy. The removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia, sparked a deadly protest, but the Confederate general opposed them. When Confederate statues were erected throughout history. Statues of Confederate heroes were not erected immediately after the war. Who raised the majority of the Confederate Monuments and Statues? Instead their very survival depends on operating in a clear-eyed reality where systemic racial oppression shapes their lives now and then.”. Questions Remain in Police Shooting. Blevins' "Forever in Mourning" Chart of Union and Confederate Monuments, 1860-1920 . One statue is a tribute to Confederate General Robert E. Lee, whose image is the last remaining piece of Confederate iconography left standing on Richmond’s famous Monument Avenue. What Will New Casino Bring to Norfolk, Pamunkey Tribe. In many ways, the statues were meant to be a symbol of white supremacy. … Yet still standing were Confederate monuments that fueled the white supremacist ideas which got Evers, King and countless other Black people killed or brutalized, or discriminated against. In the past week, confederate statues have been in the spotlight. VETERAN. Most of the Confederate monuments in the United States were commissioned and erected during times of racial strife, or by organizations that championed white supremacy. June 11, 2020 2:41 pm EDT. 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