Keeping public statues of serious rights violators is incompatible with the state's duties to condemn and repudiate serious wrongdoing. Just because there may be a sense of closure now doesn’t mean those issues won’t one day be reopened. Nellie Peyton, “As the Men of Stone Fall, Who Should Rise up and Take Their Place?,” news.trust.org, July 2, 2020, 33. Pilot of crashed US plane was slumped over - reports. Countless more examples . The story starts in the mid-19th century, when the designers of Trafalgar Square decided that there would be one huge column for Horatio Nelson and four smaller plinths for statues surrounding it. 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 wouldn’t be upheld there. Eight US presidents owned slaves while in office, with an additional four owning slaves while not in office. For when you put up a statue to honour a historical moment, you reduce that moment to a single person. Explore the full festival programme and register now at hayfestival.org/wales. Answer: We have to distinguish what kind of monuments we’re talking about. Ilya Somin |. Jack Jenkins, “How the Charleston Shooting Is Linked to the Confederate Flag, According to A South Carolinian,” thinkprogress.org, June 19, 2015, 3. Colston, an official in the Royal African Company, which reportedly sold as many as 100,000 west Africans into slavery, died in 1721. Below are the proper citations for this page according to four style manuals (in alphabetical order): the Modern Language Association Style Manual (MLA), the Chicago Manual of Style (Chicago), the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA), and Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (Turabian). 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. The Lee statue had been designated a historic monument, so people thought that would protect it from removal, but the governor of Virginia said, no, we’re taking it down. Stephen E. Ambrose, “Founding Fathers and Slaveholders,” smithsonianmag.com, Nov. 2002, 43. Statues of historical figures are lazy, ugly and distort history. What you got in the interim before that happened was a kind of a battle over community values. Should Statues Be Removed Pros And Cons - Stay informed with breaking news, in-depth analysis and community coverage. This was partly an aesthetic trend of the late Victorian era. As James Grossman, PhD, Executive Director of the American Historical Association, notes, “It’s not just that the statues represent white supremacy, but the purpose of building the statues was the perpetuation of white supremacy. When those values are not shared a debate needs to be started.". Defend the existence of confederate statues as ways of honoring the past with the United Daughters of the Confederacy, an organization devoted to the memory of Confederate soldiers. They did not want to remember the civil war as an episode that brought devastation and humiliation. The 1992 unveiling of a statue of Arthur "Bomber" Harris, head of the RAF's Bomber Command in World War Two, created a wave of protest, culminating in sustained vandalism. It was long enough since the horrors of the civil war that it could be misremembered as a noble defence of racialised regional culture rather than just slavery. While the debate whether Confederate statues 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. They honored racial prejudice. This was no coincidence, either. His policies were. Greta Anderson, “When Free Speech and Racist Speech Collide,” insidehighered.com, June 23, 2020, 36. In other words, not only was what they did wrong, but it was widely known to be wrong at the time they did it. The statues misrepresent history, and glorify people who perpetuated slavery, attempted secession from United States, and lost the Civil War. The statue was defaced, there was a lot of graffiti that dealt with defunding the police, and there are some incredibly powerful images that were taken during that time, some of which are going into the new time capsule. It’s also important to distinguish statues from records of history, because that’s not what they’re about. Taney's bust was replaced with one of Thurgood Marshall. [31], In Louisville, a statue of Confederate soldier John Breckinridge Castleman was removed. Leader of the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters Julius Malema said: "It is through collapsing of these types of symbols that the white minority will begin to appreciate that there's nothing superior about them.". 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. Explain your answer with examples and reasoning. The statues were built to honor and enforce white supremacist views, and the intent or damaging effect have not been erased by time. Having been a black leftwing Guardian columnist for more than two decades, I understood that I would be regarded as fair game for the kind of moral panics that might make headlines in rightwing tabloids. But the movement against his statue was aimed at wider targets - continuing domination of education by white academics and generally addressing the lack of change in modern South Africa. Let’s have an open and honest conversation about white people. But the only time I was ever caught in the tabloids’ crosshairs was not because of my denunciations of capitalism or racism, but because of a statue – or to be more precise, the absence of one. Take the statues of Confederate figures in Richmond, Virginia that were the focus of protests last summer. These are the people who made it happen. What purpose do they serve in society? Let’s argue about the facts, let’s put them down on paper – or on a marker – and have a conversation about them.” [24], Geoff Palmer, Scotland’s first black professor, who disagrees with taking down the statues, warned against being distracted by the simple, concrete action of taking down statues: “We don’t want to leave this so that people looking back in 50 years will say: you know, they took the statues down, why didn’t they do something about racism?” [53]. During the global Black Lives Matter protests 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-holding Founding Fathers in general, as well as historic monuments to Abraham Lincoln and abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass. To take the example of Colston in Bristol, the current positive plaque on his statue could be replaced by one that made clear that he was involved in the slave trade. They wanted him, and his crimes, to be remembered. The idea is, this is a statue of a civil leader, and they are someone whose virtue or deeds we're meant to emulate as citizens. Gino Spocchia, “Christopher Columbus Statue Torn Down, Set on Fire and Tossed in Lake by Anti-Racism Protesters in Virginia,” independent.co.uk, June 10, 2020, 9. But a petition has been countered by a series of figures counselling caution, including historian Mary Beard who said it was "not the job of the present to tick the past off". Britain’s major cities, including Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham and Leeds, are undertaking reviews of their statues. Then you’re asking museums to do a lot of work they don’t want to do and maybe shouldn’t be doing. Rhodes believed the English were a "master race" and he was instrumental in the seizure of swathes of African land. John Daniel Davidson, Political Editor at The Federalist, explained, “That they were wrong about slavery does not excuse us today from the burden of trying to understand what motivated them to fight—and what motivated them and their families to undertake a flurry of monument-building decades later as the surviving veterans began to die off… A more mature society would recognize that the past is always with you and must always be kept in mind. Follow the long read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, listen to our podcasts here and sign up to the long read weekly email here. On July 13, 2022, Florida erected a statue of Mary McLeod Bethune to replace their confederate soldier statue. Jun 11, 2020 -- 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. This time also coincided with the creation of many Confederate monuments, though they were coming from a different set of concerns. The same cannot be said of statues of people. Never to be moved, removed, adapted or engaged with beyond popular reverence. In this article we will explore the common arguments for and against the removal of the statues and how to write an argumentative essay on this topic. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., “Monuments of Hope, Memorials to a Poisoned Past,” britannica.com, May 25, 2018, 23. The US is undergoing a cultural battle over symbols of the Confederate era that has seen a statue of Jefferson Davis removed from the University of Texas-Austin. But the debate around public art and memorialisation, as it pertains to statues, should be engaged not ducked. Opponents said, well, if you're going to take down Jefferson Davis, the next day you're going to take down George Washington. 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. Latisha Jensen, “Portland Man Describes Tearing Down Thomas Jefferson Statue: ‘It’s Not Vandalism,’” wweek.com, June 20, 2020, 12. Why build a street for losers?… Psychologically, it’s perpetuating a system. 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. And then, of course, in Britain there was the statue of Edward Colston, a Bristol slave trader, which ended up in the drink. Monuments of people - statuary - I think come out of a tradition of imitation. The main duty is not to hide the bitter parts.” [43]. He asked why there are no statues of Adolf Hitler in Berlin. Donald Trump, Twitter.com, June 30, 2020, 35. Now there is intense controversy over whether the statue should be removed. Consider the idea of placing the removed statues in museums with the American Alliance of Museums. Nobody is seriously challenging the statue of the suffragist Millicent Fawcett in Parliament Square, because nobody seriously challenges the notion of women’s suffrage. Jackson was a slave owner. SINHA: Well, I think it is important not to go from one extreme to the other. An 1884 Confederate monument to General Robert E. Lee is removed from Lee Circle in New Orleans, Louisiana, on May 19, 2017. GREENE: But what about historical figures with complicated, often racist histories who were also Union generals or former presidents? In recent months, I have been part of a team at the University of Manchester’s Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (Code) studying the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement on statues and memorials in Britain, the US, South Africa, Martinique and Belgium. Top photo: The base of the Robert E. Lee monument in Richmond, Virginia, after his statue was removed from atop it. Activism forces a reckoning with what our values are. I was really dismayed to see the statue of Grant, especially, come down because Grant was never comfortable with owning that one slave that was given to him by his father-in-law. So these statues, I think, need to be contextualized historically. A toppled confederate statue in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in 2018. ne claim for not bringing down certain statues of people who committed egregious acts is that we should not judge people of another time by today’s standards. But with each request I got, I would make the petitioner an offer: if you can name those who occupy the other three plinths, then the fourth is yours. Gary Younge is a professor of sociology at the University of Manchester and a Type Media Fellow. If they did, they would not be challenged as they are. Students at the University of Missouri also asked for a statue of Thomas Jefferson - third president of the US - to be taken down as he was a "racist rapist". He delivers the annual Aneurin Bevan Lecture at Hay Festival 2021, free online this Friday 4 June at 2pm. PDF The Duty to Remove Statues of Wrongdoers - PhilPapers There’s one school of thought that says communities should be the ones to decide. 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. Monticello, “Jefferson's Attitudes toward Slavery,” monticello.org (accessed July 7, 2020), 41. Hannah Natanson, “There’s a New Way to Deal with Confederate Monuments: Signs That Explain Their Racist History,” washingtonpost.com, Sep. 22, 2019, 53. We are much more beautiful.”. The idea is, this is a statue of a civil leader, and they are someone whose virtue or deeds we’re meant to emulate as citizens. ProCon/Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. In Britain, we seem to have a peculiar fixation with statues, as we seek to petrify historical discourse, lather it in cement, hoist it high and insist on it as a permanent statement of fact, culture, truth and tradition that can never be questioned, touched, removed or recast. But that’s incredibly problematic. What does that say to black citizens of the state, or other citizens, or to younger generations?” [4], Of about 5,193 public statues of people in the United States, only 394 are of women, and far fewer are of black Americans or other people of color. When we’re talking about the Lee statue, it’s a really good example of what can happen when there is disagreement in the community about what its values are. Arguments For And Against Removing Confederate Statues - Ranker By the time they were set in stone there were significant movements, if not legislation, condemning the very things that had made them rich and famous. That was not the first time she had been thrown off a bus. Once again the editorial writers were upon us: “The saga of the empty plinth is another example of the yawning gap between the metropolitan elite hijacking this country and the majority of ordinary people who simply want to reclaim Britain as their own.”. Sarah Fling, “The Formerly Enslaved Household of the Grant Family,” whitehousehistory.org, Apr. So what should be the standard for taking down a statue? It’s not history that these statues’ protectors are defending: it’s mythology. Statues always tell us more about the values of the period when they were put up than about the story of the person depicted. More than half were built within one seven-year period, between 1905 and 1912. "I think it is a process, rather than the actual removal, starting a debate about collective values. They are erected with eternity in mind – a fixed point on the landscape. Can UK’s Storm Shadow missiles change Ukraine war? Push for the position and policies you support by writing US national senators and representatives. The Avalon Project, “A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.,” avalon.law.yale.edu  (accessed July 8, 2020), 17. To put up a statue you must own the land on which it stands and have the authority and means to do so. What that signals is a shift in power.”. Should Slavery's Statues Be Preserved? On Transitional Justice and ... To put up a statue you must own the land on which it stands and have the authority and means to do so. The Virginia statues still stood amid the protests following the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, though they were tagged with graffiti. Manisha Sinha, a Civil War historian at the University of Connecticut, says when it comes to, say, Robert E. Lee, take it down. Valerie Strauss, “Christopher Columbus: 3 Things You Think He Did That He Didn’t,” washingtonpost.com, Oct. 14, 2013, 22. Mississippi’s secession declaration states, “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Two weeks later, Hurricane Laura blew it down. 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. In the US, violent protests in Charlottesville were sparked by a decision to remove from a park a statue of Robert E. Lee, a Confederate general in the American Civil War, because of the. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Four decades later, when Barack Obama unveiled a memorial to King in Washington DC, 91% of Americans approved. When is it right to remove a statue? Southerners had to forget the reality of the civil war before they could celebrate it. Also removed from the monument’s base was a 133-year-old copper time capsule containing artifacts and ephemera related to the Confederacy. In mid-August last year, the jury voted 10-4 to keep a memorial monument to the soldiers who died defending the Confederacy in the civil war. The problem with statues is that stone or bronze is meant to last forever, but reputations crumble much more easily. 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. But while our sense of who we are, what is acceptable and what is possible changes with time, statues don’t. I call this the “But that was before racism was bad” argument or, as others have termed it, the Jimmy Savile defence. The SPLC reported at least 160 monuments were removed in 2020 after George Floyd’s death, more than the prior four years combined At last count, about 704 Confederate monuments remained on public land. There are many other people who could be represented by statues who would better represent the historical progress and diversity of the country. Kelly Grovier, “Black Lives Matter Protests: Why Are Statues So Powerful?,” bbc.com, June 12, 2020, 26. Worlds collided. Our understanding of the past shifts. Oxford Rhodes statue should be turned to face wall, says Antony Gormley. Luckily for me, it turned out that, if there was a gap between anyone and the ordinary people of the country on this issue, then the Daily Mail was on the wrong side of it. And that is, in fact, a very imperialist vision. So to me, if statues are performing this work of showing us what we most value as a society, once our values change, no, we shouldn’t keep them. They didn’t like having black classmates because they had racist hearts. It had already been decapitated 30 years ago. Jeff Kelly Lowenstein, “Martin Luther King Jr., Women, and the Possibility of Growth,” chicagoreporter.com, Jan. 18, 2019, 48. Juan De Anda, “Why Representation Matters Now,” mediapost.com, April 21, 2020, 28. Sophia A. Nelson, “Opinion: Don't Take Down Confederate Monuments.

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