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OP-ED: Monuments are not historical markers

6 min read
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At President Trump’s speech at Mt. Rushmore, he warned: “As we meet here tonight, there is a growing danger that threatens every blessing our ancestors fought so hard for, struggled, they bled to secure.” What is this existential threat? COVID-19, which is once again raging through the country, and has already claimed more than 140,000 lives? An economy that recently saw its greatest decline in history? Climate change, a growing existential threat? Not even close. According to Trump, the most pressing problem facing America is “a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children. Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities …”

When I first started writing this piece, Trump was not a part of it; I just wanted to address the false notion that Confederate statues are important historical records. But as with everything, Trump had to inject himself into the controversy to create the chaos on which he thinks he thrives. Trump knows he cannot run for reelection on his record, so his only hope is distract people from the evidence of his failures as president with claims that the “radical left” will destroy their way of life. Polling suggests that people are tired of his schtick, and will no longer fall for the distractions.

To address the issue at hand, a monument is not an historical marker. A monument literally puts someone up on a pedestal, is usually larger than life, and the subject is often mounted on a horse. Everything about a monument screams “you should look up to this person.” Monuments are not there to teach history.

That’s not to say that monuments are not part of history. Certainly, seeing a statue may encourage people to ask who it is, and why they have a statue. More significantly, who puts up the statue and when often provides evidence as to their purpose. In the case of most of the Confederate monuments, they were often paid for by the Daughters of the Confederacy, and were put up when white people feared racial change; most were put up in front of government buildings during the post-Reconstruction Jim Crow era, when white Southerners felt the need to remind African Americans who was in charge. If these statues told the history of the Civil War, there would be one of General Sherman in Atlanta, where his victory assured Lincoln’s reelection in 1864. There is not.

The statues of Confederate generals are part of the “lost cause” interpretation of the Civil War, promoted by Southerners who argued that their ancestors fought bravely to preserve their home and way of life, and only lost because of the population and the industrial might of the North. Venerating the bravery of Confederate soldiers who died to preserve slavery is like venerating the bravery of the 9/11 hijackers who gave their lives to promote their own twisted ideology. Americans would be rightly offended by a statue of 9/11 hijackers at ground zero, even if the statue would be historically accurate. Statues are not historical markers.

Defenders of statues make two good points. First, what about statues to people who have done many good things, but were also deeply flawed, such as slaveholders like Washington and Jefferson who allowed slavery to continue in the “American experiment”? That’s fair, but it raises the question of why do we need to have monuments at all? Monuments inevitably are unnuanced white-washed versions of history, and most are not particularly interesting as sculpture (once you’ve seen one general on a horse, you’ve seen ’em all …). While I would not remove all statues of flawed historical heroes, we should reconsider the issue. At the very least, we should be able to agree that people who took up arms against our country should not be venerated with a statue.

The second valid criticism is that energetic crowds should not be destroying statues. While I understand the motivation behind people’s desire to take action, and I won’t say that destruction of symbols of oppression is never warranted, I think it best that we abide by the law, and remove statues using a rational, legal process. Doing so would prevent making mistakes, like when an angry crowd in Wisconsin took down the statue of an abolitionist who gave his life in service of the cause. On the other hand, sometimes the rational legal process needs to be pushed; the recently enacted Tennessee Heritage Protection Act prevents municipalities from removing Confederate statues on their own. In such cases, a little civil disobedience may be in order.

This issue first came to the fore in Trump’s first year when Charlottesville decided to remove a statue of General Robert E. Lee, which inspired a protest by White Nationalists (and a counterprotest), during which a white nationalist drove his car into the counterprotesters, killing 32- year-old Heather Heyer. We have made progress since then; Mississippi voted to remove the Confederate flag from its state flag, the NFL acknowledged its failure to listen to Colin Kaepernick, the U.S. Army agreed to rename the bases named after Confederate generals, and there is much more popular support for Black Lives Matter. As Martin Luther Kings Jr. said, “the arc of freedom is long, but it bends towards justice.” Removing statues of Confederate soldiers does not do much about the issues facing minorities today, but it’s not insignificant. Since most Americans agree about removing Confederate statues, we should do that and move on to making more substantive efforts to achieve racial justice. We should not let Trump distract us from the real problems, like dealing with a deadly virus, rebuilding the economy, and ending police violence, with his efforts to pretend that the real issue is how people feel about statues of flawed historical figures.

Kent James is an East Washington resident and has degrees in history and policy management from Carnegie Mellon University. He is an adjunct professor of history at Washington & Jefferson College.

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