Erecting or toppling a statue makes history, doesn’t destroy it

Historian and genealogist Kenneth E. Britten’s July 5 letter claimed “Our history is being destroyed” by the removal of public statues. Many historians disagree.
Statues tell us much more about the people that fund, dedicate, and preserve them than they do about the historical people or events they commemorate.
Historians have long studied contested monuments sponsored by the Sons of the Confederacy and the Daughters of the Confederacy. These two organizations began erecting monuments as propaganda to peddle fake history soon after Reconstruction. Most statues were erected during either the second wave Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow Era or the 1960s Civil Rights Movement to promote white supremacy, not to record history. These Confederate statues use public spaces to indoctrinate passersby with “Lost Cause” lies that transform a war to defend slavery into a romanticized, noble cause about states’ rights. This includes depicting traitorous enslavers as benevolent masters in an attempt to erase the emotional, sexual, and physical cruelties perpetrated by enslaving Black men, women, and children who consistently resisted oppression.
Statues glorify people and events. They do not by themselves teach accurate history.
This is also evident in ways monuments have been used by immigrant groups to integrate in the United States. One local example is found in the Washington County Courthouse where Polish-Americans erected a plaque in 1929 to commemorate Polish general Kazimierz (Casimir) Pulaski’s contributions to the Revolutionary War. Pulaski never fought in this region, but Polish-Americans facing discrimination used his legacy as a way to claim historic roots here. Today, those walking through the courthouse might also view Pulaski as a transgender hero. The plaque is the same, but changing taboos and the availability of a DNA study released by the Smithsonian Institution in 2019 led to new speculation among researchers.
History at its best is not about mindlessly memorizing names and dates. It invites us to think critically about the past by weighing competing perspectives and conflicting sources. History is complex and not etched in stone or metal – though some try. Narratives change with new evidence and paradigms.
Britten is right to encourage more reading. However, I suspect it will lead to a different result than the one he intends. Far from being a universal defense of statues, greater understanding of history will encourage more folks to recognize the insidious rationale for Confederate monuments.
Not every historical figure deserves a statue in a public square and not every statue portrays history accurately. I trust that most Americans recognize this is not an all or nothing situation. We can remove some statues and keep others. Our decisions say more about us than the historical people or events they commemorate.
Erecting or toppling public statues makes history, but doesn’t destroy it.
Samuel J. Richards
Richards is a Washington County native currently teaching history at Shanghai American School in China.