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Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials
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Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials
There are more than 160 Confederate monuments and memorials to the Confederate States of America (CSA; the Confederacy) and associated figures that have been removed from public spaces in the United States, all but five of them since 2015. Some have been removed by state and local governments; others have been torn down by protestors.
More than seven hundred monuments and memorials have been created on public land, the vast majority in the South during the era of Jim Crow laws from 1877 to 1964. Efforts to remove them began after the Charleston church shooting, the Unite the Right rally, and the murder of George Floyd later increased.
Proponents of the removal of the monuments cite historical analysis which supports their belief that the monuments were not built as memorials, instead, they were built to intimidate African Americans and reaffirm white supremacy after the Civil War; and that they memorialize an unrecognized, treasonous government, the Confederacy, whose founding principle was the perpetuation and expansion of slavery. They also argue that the presence of these memorials more than a hundred years after the defeat of the Confederacy continues to disenfranchise and alienate African Americans. However, opponents believe that the removal of the monuments is the erasure of history or they believe that it is a sign of disrespect for their Southern heritage. Some Southern states passed state laws restricting or prohibiting the removal or alteration of public monuments.
According to The Washington Post, five Confederate monuments were removed after the Civil War, eight in the two years after the Charleston shooting, 48 in the three years after the Unite the Right rally, and 110 in the two years after George Floyd's murder. In 2022, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said he would order the renaming of U.S. military bases named for Confederate generals, as well as other Defense Department property that honored Confederates.
The campaign to remove monuments has been extended beyond the United States; around the world, many statues and other public works of art which are related to the transatlantic slave trade and European colonialism have been removed or destroyed.
Most of the Confederate monuments on public land were built in periods of racial conflict, such as when Jim Crow laws were being introduced in the late 19th century and at the start of the 20th century or during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. These two periods also coincided with the 50th and 100th year after the end of the Civil War, including the American Civil War Centennial. The peak in construction of Civil War monuments occurred between the late 1890s up to 1920, with a second smaller peak in the late-1950s to mid-1960s.
In an August 2017 statement on the monuments controversy, the American Historical Association (AHA) said that to remove a monument "is not to erase history, but rather to alter or call attention to a previous interpretation of history". The AHA said that most monuments were erected "without anything resembling a democratic process", and recommended that it was "time to reconsider these decisions". 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". Memorials to the Confederacy erected during this period "were intended, in part, to obscure the terrorism required to overthrow Reconstruction, and to intimidate African Americans politically and isolate them from the mainstream of public life". A later wave of monument building coincided with the civil rights movement, and according to the AHA, "these symbols of white supremacy are still being invoked for similar purposes."
Michael J. McAfee, curator of history at the West Point Museum, said, "There are no monuments that mention the name Benedict Arnold. What does this have to do with the Southern monuments honoring the political and military leaders of the Confederacy? They, like Arnold, were traitors. They turned their backs on their nation, their oaths, and the sacrifices of their ancestors in the War for Independence.... They attempted to destroy their nation to defend chattel slavery and from a sense that as white men they were innately superior to all other races. They fought for white racial supremacy. That is why monuments glorifying them and their cause should be removed. Leave monuments marking their participation on the battlefields of the war, but tear down those that only commemorate the intolerance, violence, and hate that inspired their attempt to destroy the American nation."
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Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials
There are more than 160 Confederate monuments and memorials to the Confederate States of America (CSA; the Confederacy) and associated figures that have been removed from public spaces in the United States, all but five of them since 2015. Some have been removed by state and local governments; others have been torn down by protestors.
More than seven hundred monuments and memorials have been created on public land, the vast majority in the South during the era of Jim Crow laws from 1877 to 1964. Efforts to remove them began after the Charleston church shooting, the Unite the Right rally, and the murder of George Floyd later increased.
Proponents of the removal of the monuments cite historical analysis which supports their belief that the monuments were not built as memorials, instead, they were built to intimidate African Americans and reaffirm white supremacy after the Civil War; and that they memorialize an unrecognized, treasonous government, the Confederacy, whose founding principle was the perpetuation and expansion of slavery. They also argue that the presence of these memorials more than a hundred years after the defeat of the Confederacy continues to disenfranchise and alienate African Americans. However, opponents believe that the removal of the monuments is the erasure of history or they believe that it is a sign of disrespect for their Southern heritage. Some Southern states passed state laws restricting or prohibiting the removal or alteration of public monuments.
According to The Washington Post, five Confederate monuments were removed after the Civil War, eight in the two years after the Charleston shooting, 48 in the three years after the Unite the Right rally, and 110 in the two years after George Floyd's murder. In 2022, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said he would order the renaming of U.S. military bases named for Confederate generals, as well as other Defense Department property that honored Confederates.
The campaign to remove monuments has been extended beyond the United States; around the world, many statues and other public works of art which are related to the transatlantic slave trade and European colonialism have been removed or destroyed.
Most of the Confederate monuments on public land were built in periods of racial conflict, such as when Jim Crow laws were being introduced in the late 19th century and at the start of the 20th century or during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. These two periods also coincided with the 50th and 100th year after the end of the Civil War, including the American Civil War Centennial. The peak in construction of Civil War monuments occurred between the late 1890s up to 1920, with a second smaller peak in the late-1950s to mid-1960s.
In an August 2017 statement on the monuments controversy, the American Historical Association (AHA) said that to remove a monument "is not to erase history, but rather to alter or call attention to a previous interpretation of history". The AHA said that most monuments were erected "without anything resembling a democratic process", and recommended that it was "time to reconsider these decisions". 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". Memorials to the Confederacy erected during this period "were intended, in part, to obscure the terrorism required to overthrow Reconstruction, and to intimidate African Americans politically and isolate them from the mainstream of public life". A later wave of monument building coincided with the civil rights movement, and according to the AHA, "these symbols of white supremacy are still being invoked for similar purposes."
Michael J. McAfee, curator of history at the West Point Museum, said, "There are no monuments that mention the name Benedict Arnold. What does this have to do with the Southern monuments honoring the political and military leaders of the Confederacy? They, like Arnold, were traitors. They turned their backs on their nation, their oaths, and the sacrifices of their ancestors in the War for Independence.... They attempted to destroy their nation to defend chattel slavery and from a sense that as white men they were innately superior to all other races. They fought for white racial supremacy. That is why monuments glorifying them and their cause should be removed. Leave monuments marking their participation on the battlefields of the war, but tear down those that only commemorate the intolerance, violence, and hate that inspired their attempt to destroy the American nation."
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