The Future of Confederate Monuments
As the nation reckons with its racist history, legislation calling for the removal of Confederate commemorative works from national parkland is likely to be reconsidered this year.
By Kim O'Connell
If you knew nothing about the U.S. Civil War and traveled to Gettysburg National Military Park, you might be forgiven for believing the South won, based on a reading of the monuments alone.
The statue of Southern commander Robert E. Lee on horseback, which also serves as the monument to the fighting sons of his home state of Virginia, stands at 41 feet tall, including both statue and pedestal. It’s more than double the height of the similar equestrian statue of Union Gen. George Gordon Meade that sits across the field, despite the fact that Meade was the victor at Gettysburg, helping to turn the tide of the war.
Lee’s prominence at Gettysburg, along with the estimated 1,700 Confederate commemorative works that still stand across the United States, is now under scrutiny. In recent years, the nation’s racist history has been debated and confronted in a variety of ways, with Confederate names and symbols being removed from public squares, schools, and flagpoles across the South and elsewhere. And yet, the Confederate battle flag is still hoisted aloft and visible in places like the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and at the U.S. Capitol insurrection last month, not to mention on countless car bumpers, t-shirts, and gift shop tables.
Last summer, Democratic lawmakers in the fiscal 2021 spending package included language that would have required the National Park Service to remove Confederate monuments from all National Park System sites within six months. Although that language didn’t make it into the final bill, it’s likely to be reintroduced this year.
The proposal is raising a debate not only between those who support Confederate symbols and those who say they prop up a legacy of hate, but between those who say the Park Service needs more time to inventory and consider these works and those who say the Confederacy has been given time enough.
At issue, too, is the crusty legacy of the “Lost Cause,” the mythologizing of the Southern warriors that recast them as fighting not to support slavery but to maintain states’ rights (overlooking, of course, that those "rights" included enslaving other human beings). Most of the Confederate monuments erected on national parklands were placed there in the early 20th century, well after the war, during the height of Jim Crow segregation. They are not interpretive historical markers, opponents say, but symbols of white supremacy and oppression.
The National Park Service was a willing participant in this effort, allowing groups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy to sponsor monuments on its battlefields that helped to elevate and equalize the losing side. Hence, the existence of the Lee monument at Gettysburg, erected in 1917, and the Robert E. Lee Memorial, as his former home in Arlington, Virginia, is designated — despite the fact that Lee was an often-brutal slaveowner who took up arms against his own government.
“This is not about erasing history or denying anyone’s heritage,” said U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, Democrat from Minnesota and a key advocate of the removal legislation, during a Congressional subcommittee debate last July. “This is about whether we’re willing to do the hard work needed to confront the truth of our history and to work to right past wrongs. In order to do that, it means ending the use of Confederate symbols which continue to be used today to intimidate and terrorize millions of our American citizens.”
McCollum isn’t sure yet what form the removal requirement might take, but she plans to support it, and she thinks the NPS is well positioned to move quickly. “As to whether or not I’ll do formal legislation, I’ll still be making sure I continue to work on removing these symbols of discrimination and oppression on public lands,” McCollum said in an interview with the Traveler. “People at the Park Service are smart enough and well-trained enough that they probably have a good idea what they have [in terms of Confederate monuments]. The people who work on our public lands -- they are professionals. I’m sure many have been thinking about it already.”
Other park advocates argue, however, that the Park Service needs far more time to consider the monuments and their specific roles in their particular landscapes, noting that some monuments might be historically significant in their own right, perhaps because of the artist who sculpted or designed them or some other reason. The ground disturbance from monument removal could also trigger federally required archaeological assessments or other studies to discern impacts on the historic landscape.
“This is not an issue to be resolved by an act of Congress,” says former NPS Director Jon Jarvis, now the chair of the board for UC-Berkeley’s Institute for Parks, People, and Biodiversity. “There are literally thousands of monuments to the soldiers of the North and the South on the various Civil War battlefields maintained by the NPS. Many are important because they mark a particular battle, a skirmish, victory or loss, on the actual ground where people died. These monuments are used by the NPS staff in their interpretation of the events and are often important for context. That is very different from a bronze guy on a horse in the middle of a traffic circle placed there to intimidate.”
Jarvis encourages President Biden to request that Congress commission a study, led by prominent and diverse historians, to evaluate the monuments against a set of agreed-upon standards to help determine which ones get removed or put in some other context, such as a museum or warehouse.
“A better symbolic measure by Congress would be to direct the Park Service to complete an analysis of its monuments and report back in two years and then they would get to work on it,” Jarvis says. “What is needed to respond to those who were disenfranchised during the Civil War and during Reconstruction is a reinterpretation of the Civil War, and we stated that during the sesquicentennial. Rather than focus on taking down this or that monument…provide the platform for the telling of a broader story and to not respond to a quick fix.”
Although the National Parks Conservation Association hasn’t released an official policy on this yet, the organization generally supports giving NPS the time and resources to assess its Confederate works. “We want the Park Service to have the opportunity to inventory their commemorative works,” says NPCA’s Mid-Atlantic Senior Regional Director Joy Oakes. “We want the professionals to have a thoughtful and informed process.”
NPCA Advisory Board member Edwin Fountain, a historic preservation expert, adds that some monuments, such as the Lee statue at Gettysburg, are more than 100 years old and are therefore considered “contributing features” on the historic landscape, to use preservation parlance. “So on what grounds do you just start saying, ‘Oh, we're going to start removing contributing features from national parks.’ I'm not saying that ends all debate, but it's got to be part of the debate.”
Others believe, however, that these symbols are keeping a significant segment of people away from these parks. It's worth noting that only an estimated 7 percent of national park visitors are Black.
“The Park Service needs to ask, ‘Who’s coming to your site and who’s not coming to your site?’” says Denise Meringolo, a professor of public history at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and author of Museums, Monuments, and National Parks: Toward a New Genealogy of Public History. “Those monuments are a barrier to significant portions of the audience, for whom they are not simply inaccurate or annoying. They are traumatizing.”
Meringolo says that people should reconsider the prevalent assumption that monuments are permanent. “If a goal of a monument is to represent some kind of civic culture that we believe is worth discussing, and if we want to put up these things to represent common values, when someone says, ‘This doesn’t represent the values we hold dear,’ maybe it’s time to take them down. They’re not doing the work that we think they are doing. A monument is always an assertion of power and authority. It’s staking a claim.”
Historian and educator Kevin Levin, author of Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth, says it’s worth listening to those whose voices have long been silenced and to use this moment as an opportunity for more context and interpretation.
“Many of these monuments went up at a time when African Americans were simply disfranchised,” Levin says. “They were, for legal reasons, for political reasons, just unable to voice their own view about how the war should be commemorated in public spaces. And so I think for that reason alone, this has to be taken seriously. But at the same time, I draw a distinction between Park Service sites like Gettysburg and, say, Richmond's Monument Avenue.”
Whether all or just some of the monuments stay or go, Levin believes there is enough NPS battlefield land to provide additional context about the Confederate monuments so that visitors can get a more complete picture of how and why they got there, and what their existence says about who we are.
“I do think there's an opportunity at places like Gettysburg, acknowledging that the Confederate monuments are problematic to many people,” Levin continues. “The Park Service has a responsibility to face that.”
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Comments
No , you are the one that is showing ignorance of history.
The article is misinformed or purposely misleading in multiple areas. Robert E. Lee was second only to Washington himself in character and humanity. He reluctantly opposed his own government when they marched on his home state.
Anybody that thinks there is more that a minor difference in what the two fought for shows nothing but a total ignorance of history.
Lee not being 'as bar's as Hitler really isn't setting the bar very high, now is it? He still fought to subjugate an entire people based on a very minimal (if obvious) genetic/DNA difference in melanin. He was still a racist traitor who should have been executed for his crimes. Any monuments to him should have him being hung as the human garbage he was.
He deserves no greater (in)dignity than that.
Let's get rid of all monuments to all slave holders, Confederate insurgents and anyone that has ever held had any racist beliefs including Washington and Lincoln. It's time.
If your wanting all things racist gone, you better include all the black lives matter, NAACP, Black tv stations,black radio programs, black magazines, black beauty pagents, black colleges, etc...They are the biggest racist group out there. They don't want equal rights, they want everything to be about them. They are included in all the things listed above but have to have their own tv stations, radio programs, magazines, beauty pagents, colleges, etc...Now that's what I call racist!
AMEN to that. They are removing Confederate named streets and replaceing with black names or Mexican names. And how come they take our historical statues down and replace with black guys or replacement of the military bases names with some name we can't even pronounce. I'm not racist I treat all people the way they treat me. And if the NAACP or Black Lives Matter people read there history how did they even get here from Africa ?? They where sold to us by there on people under the African flag and the American flag. And also if you Google which flag slaves where sold under Google says the American flag seen more slaves than any. Thank You for defending what can't defend itself. ----- [email protected] ------
Why do you want to remove it all it statues it's our history of our nation you want to erase everything that we have had in our Naton? It is to be honored not destroyed it is what happened in our nation we should be proud of it never mind your simple mind It's what made America Leave it alone please we have enough trouble in our country Let's just leave it alonethe next thing you want to do is take all the warrior heroes down from World War I and II Just let it go leave it alone it's been there for hundreds of years it has been bothering anyone it is a history just leave it alone It's there for people to enjoy look at it's not heard anything leave it alone
One of the first lessons I taught my World History students was different cultures had different values. It didn't make them bad people but it was the world into which they were born. The people of the Confederacy were no different.
One needs to read what both sides went through during the Civil War. They fought for what they believed to be right. I have visited Gettysburg and to remove statues and memorials would be no better than terrorist destroying the ruins at Petra because they were offended. I love visiting historic sites but cancelled trips to Richmond , Memphis and other places that are ignorant of history.
Get rid of Washington and Lincoln? The man who started the country and the great emancipator. Are you really that stupid?
Does this include black slave owners in the south
And statues of all meat eaters! Because I assure you, just 100 years from now those who tormented, slaughtered and ate animals will be considered barbaric and incomprehensibly cruel.
Can't erase history, bud. As this Country moves to more of a socialist agenda, soon, there will book burnings, because all history books, will contain the civil war. Libraries will then have to purge all documents that relate to racism. This does not solve the big picture, it just creates a more division in the USA.
I guess will get rid of the first sixteen presidents that own slaves
Yes Bill, lets judge the people of 200 years ago by the standards of today. But then Bill, what are you doing for today's slaves? I'm guessing nada.
100% correct. You cannot change history just to meet our 2021 standards. It was a different time & place, and we need to recognize that. Confederate leaders were no different than our country's founders in rebelling against England. Slavery was a fact of the times for decades before 1860.
Physical context makes all the difference - monuments to military men on the battlefields on which they were actually engaged, are a very different thing than monuments to "heros" in town squares. On a historic Civil War battlefield the monuments, both Union and Confederate, serve as focal points for picturing the events that unfolded here and the men who were engaged in them. That may not have been the sole motive of all who raised them, but it is their function today no matter what motivated their creators. Remove the monuments from the battlefield, and what are you left with? A patch of field that looks and feels indistinguishable from every other patch of field for miles around. Remove the monuments, and then why visit at all? In all honesty, I'm just not going to be able to really appreciate that otherwise humdrum patch of field unless there are interpretive artifacts there on site - cannons, embankments, fortifications, signage and/or yes, statuary - that help me envision what happened there and the significance of it all. And I think many park visitors feel the same way.
We need to leave the statues for many reasons. They are important to the interpretation of the battlefields. But just as important is not letting a vocal minority get to change our Nation's history. People do need to be better informed about the War Between the States. And the North's part in it. Cotton was King in the North also with a very well developed textile industry and it was very important to the Nation as a whole, contributing to US growth as a global leadrer. Will we next go after any Northern businessman who had a textile factoryaking the cloth everyone wore, or that factory's workers, who had paying jobs turning cotton into cloth? Will we deride the "Buffalo soldiers" who rode into the American frontier? Our nation has a diverse history. I am as proud to belong to the DAR as I am of the Daughters of the Confederacy. I have ancestors who came to America and were the beleaguered Irish who helped build the railroads, but also became Presidents. I have children and relatives whose skin color is not the same as mine. We are all one family and one nation.
Agree 100% with DSJ. Stop re-writing and purging America's history.
The real complaint is confederate monuments not at war sites. These sites do function as museums, but to display them in public parks and cities is disrespectful to the people the confederates wanted to belittle is nothing more than intimidation and celebration of white supremacy. Im perfectly fine with battle sites, the others need proper context, and Forrest needs to go especially.
Anyone who refuses to see any similarities between the proudly strutting white supremacists who followed Robert E. Lee, the proudly strutting white supremacists who followed Adolf Hitler, and the proudly strutting white supremacists who followed that doomed to be nameless and faceless other guy who told them to violently assault and lay siege to our Capitol and try to violently overthrow the legitimately and democratically elected government of the United States is showing nothing but total and delusional denial about the truth.
You only see similarities between all these people because you want to. People are only "traumatized" by statues because they want to be. It's time everyone stopped pretending they are guilty of or victimized by events that happened 150-200 years ago and let the dead rest and their monuments stand.
Humprey, you need to learn about what really happen with all 3 of the people and events you mentioned. You should read some historical text and not listen to cnn.
Like the traitors that rose up against the British. I am certain that the Union soldiers were not racists. Ask my Cherokee ancestors, Humphrey.
Well at least you are CONSISTENT in your Complete and total misunderstanding of both Civil War AND recent history. PRESIDENT TRUMP told his supporters to Peacefully assemble at the capitol. Unlike some democrats who Directly TOLD their supporters to harass people. That's probably why they DIDN'T impeach him then. I bet you gave the coloring books in your safe space a good workout then didn't you? Probably doubled up on soy (you know for the TWO failed impeachment attempts) and dyed your hair an even more aggressive shade of pink didn't ya??? What does this have to do with statues???? Fun fact, Richard Spencer who organized the Charlottesville event endorsed biden.
History is not morality. It is history. Removing monuments does not reverse history. As one who does not justify the practice of slavery, I still recognize it as a major factor in America's greatest war. But some facts must be confronted. At the start of the Civil War, slavery was not unConstitutional. States' rights were a valid part of the Constitution. Many Southerners were not slave holders, but property owners who felt the North was imposing on their lifestyle. The South seceded from the Union after Lincoln indicated he would end slavery regardless of the Constitutional provisions permitting it and states' rights. The problem with slavery is the Founding Fathers should have outlawed it from the start. Instead, they included it in official documents. The men who fought and died for the South may have been politically incorrect, but their courage can hardly be denied. Some monuments may be openly offensive to blacks and should be removed. Others might be transferred to selective museums. But to remove historical figures who, rightly or wrongly, partcipated in America's most signicant war is a huge mistake because it is an attempt to deny actual history. I recommend keeping the key monuments, but including plaques explaining why they are important or controversial figures.
No one alive today has any moral authority to condemn anyone of the past. The most vile of my slave owning ancestors was a better more moral human being than anyone alive today.
Stanley...that is absolutely insane dreaming.
By your same standard, we cannot judge Hitler or the Nazis...nor Stalin...nor Genghis Khan...nor serial killers like Jack the Ripper or the one in Chicago about that same time...nor Manson, even.
Furthermore, your ill-informed absolutist approach, that NOBODY in the modern era is of higher moral standing than your vile ancestors, is just as misplaced and ridiculous. Speak for yourself, if you must speak, but do not dare throw entire generations under that incomprehensible bus. ANYBODY owning slaves, EVER, starts at the near-back end of the moral standings line, period.
No person of good conscience or open heart/mind could ever think otherwise.
We need to preserve our history remember there were slaveowners in the north Grant and VP Johnson for example. Leave the monuments alone if you don't like them just don't go see them.
Robert e lee was not a slave holder. He inherited them then freed them. Leave our southern general's alone. Are you going to tear down grant or Lincoln they both had slaves. How about Washington were dose it end? And yes there were black confederate soldiers not everything you read in history class is true. I suggest going to a library there are plenty of civil war history books you can find the truth if you want to our you can believe in lies. The north was not so innocent they also had slaves in fact Delaware was one of the last states to free its slaves after the war ended.
Enough of erasing our past history is meant to learn not erase. Stop judging the past we can't change it but we can learn from it. Robert e lee was a good man leave it be.
The civil war was not about slaves, hell you think everyone that lived in the south owned slaves,, hell no they didn't, only the rich plantation owner's had slaves, all most all the people that lived in the south were share croppers are ran there own family farm trying to keep food on the table and a roof over there heads, I'm sick of uneducated people saying the war was over the south wanting to keep there slaves bullshit, it was over the north wanting to tax the hell outta the south read a damn history book, furthermore it these statue's come down then all damn statue's need to come down all street names need to be changed, all schools need to be renamed, name streets after birds or trees, same with schools, no human name on nothing what's good for the pot is good for the kettle, NO HUMAN NAMES ON NOTHING THEN, NO SCHOOLS, NO LIBRARY'S, NO STREETS, NOTHING,, WHAT'S GOOD FOR ONE IS GOOD FOR ALL,,
I think the monuments should be left alone that is history if that was me and people would not leave them alone they should be put in front of a firing squad and shot this is the way it should it does not matter if your black or not and that would go for any body black or not you tear down white history
Hump...me thinks you may be delusional bro!..Sadly even the term “White Supremacy“...has been a Democratic talking point-word...throughout the 21st Century to include any old white guy who doesn conform to their “perfect agenda driven mantra”...of the hour!!..If your not willing to let history “stand” to mark a given time frame reference so that future generations can actually “learn”...from the successes and failures of our past...what good are we as a society that only goes by the “flavor of the day”...rather than give everyone a chance to taste each flavor & make their own individual choices??...Hump..last time I checked...@ least in the good ole US of A...we call that FREEDOM!
Leave the monuments. I am tired of people who know little and are often misinformed, being in charge. Their needs to be room for respect and compassion for the Southerners I the War.Between the States, too. Read history before you change history.
And beware. No one is perfect or innocent. Black people,.do you revere your Buffalo soldiers who rode West of the Mississippi against the "Indigenous peoples" of the American frontier? They will be next to be denigrated. Or will they be allowed to stand tall in history merely because they were not white?
In battllefield parks like Gettysburg the guides use monuments as historical reference points for position of troops or commanders on the field. When we are on the Union side of the field the guide will point over to the Virginia monument on the other side as Lee's position during the famous Pickett's Charge. Note also at Gettysburg there are a lot more Union monuments than Confederate. So, are we going to take the Union monuments down also ?
If Confederate statues are unacceptable and if General Lee must go, how can Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. DuBois remain? General Robert E. Lee never cheered the head of the American Nazi Party the way that Malcolm X did. Nor did he break bread with the Klan or defend the Nazis. If Lee must go, actual Klan and Nazi sympathizers like Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. DuBois should be tossed in the trash.
People have a right to their openion of history not a right to destroy it
So the America New era gonna be covered for monuments of George Floyd and other criminals?
I guess we need to take down the Washington monument, and take Washington down off the US capital since he was a slave owners. Rename a state and our nation's capital. Stop being so butt hurt. It's over.
Please quit destroying our history,
We're not taliban
Lincoln has the blood of more Americans on his hands than anyone in the history of the United States, and I'm offended by all his monuments, so they should be torn down as well
Has everyone forgot our history? All our ancestors has had a part in our past. It's not the color of our skin that counts. Read your history. Watch the movie Glory. All of us bleed the same. GOD didn't see color. I don't see color. All I see is what GOD made. Leave our history alone.
I believe that writers like yourself are not accurately portraying the reaskns behind why a man flught flr the South. These states withdrew from the United States, an act which they believed tl be perfectly legal. They set up their own Confederate States of America. Regardless of how the War started, you have to admit that most soldiers fight for their country. It's that simple. As for the flag that everyone likes to focus on, it's purpose was not a racist symbol during the War, but a battle flag to rally behind. That is why most people chose to use it in protests. Be honest and qujt rewriting history to personal views.
Be careful what you are asking to have happen. When your stance is "when someone says, this doesn't represent the values we hold dear, maybe it's time to take them down." you, very rightfully so open the statues that you hold dear to the requirement of taking your statues down by Native Americans that would have every right to demand the same. Therefore wiping out any trace of EuroAmerican presence. Now what say you?
If the statues are supposed to be historical. At Gettysburg Lee should be shown as depressed and dissappointed, leading a bunch of broken defeated soldiers in retreat rather than a proud victor of the battle.
Why? do people feel the need to disparach ? The men on both sides died in these battle fields, their memory for good or bad should be left alone.
Wether you agree/disagree leave the dead, be ? You don't have to go
to these park's and battlefield's just remember someone's family died there
Some where never found these places mark time, memory add all the plaques
You like with words that are meaningless, it won't change history you can try?
But just remember one thing, these men and boys in some cases, died for
Whichever side they're from, but never the less died for your freedom to believe
Whatever you choose!! So even if you don't agree with the history or causes Honor
The men not the hate dishonored, just the men.
Just as they don't want to remember the men and women who died.
The issue in question is "fair hearing" and not Slavery which Southerners have insisted and proven that this was never their intention since there was never any resistance exerted to defy Emancipation in the post bellum period or to attempt to force Blacks to return to preexisting circumstances.
We are allowing 14% of our population to dictate America. Think. This has to stop. As a Southerner , this is about as bad as it gets. And by the way , why are we not honoring Geo. Washington Carver , a great American of african descent.
I agree with you DSJ, the battlefield needs to be left alone. Pulling down monuments is not the answer to the issues we face today. Even if you wipe them all from the face of the earth, someone is still going to find a reason to be angry about something in the past that they can't change. We need to look forward,not backwards. Racism will never die as long as someone keeps talking about it. Yes, I was born and raised in the south, traced my family heritage all the way back to the colonies. My ancestors served in the confederate army, yes some of my ancestors were slave owners, does that make me racist, absolutely not. I never owned a slave nor has anyone alive today ever been one but, there are people out there who use this information to divide us. Those people are the real racists.
I think it is terrible and disgraceful to our country to take mo monuments fown. I am definitively mot a racist but you want to destroy history. You will find if you checked the statistics we are the most diversified country in the world.
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