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Confederate Monuments

Originally published 06/08/2018
Boston Grapples With Faneuil Hall, Named for a Slaveholder

Peter Faneuil, one of the richest merchants in 18th century New England, was a slave owner. And he traded not only in sugar, molasses and timber, but in humans.

Originally published 06/05/2018
Southern Poverty Law Center: New report on the status of Confederate monuments

Surprise finding: Texas has changed more school names than any other state by far.

Originally published 05/29/2018
Washington & Lee panel recommends the school keep its name

When a college is named for two slave owners, one of whom was a Confederate hero, history is complicated.

Originally published 05/22/2018
Mitch Landrieu: A White Southerner Confronts History

Chris Riback

There was really no way for the city of New Orleans to prepare itself for the next 300 years without dealing with its Confederate statues, he says in an interview.

Originally published 05/22/2018
Former New Orleans mayor presented with JFK award for removing Confederate statues

The award, established by members of the Kennedy family to honor JFK after his 1963 assassination, recognizes and celebrates “the quality of political courage that he admired most,” according to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

Originally published 05/03/2018
Maya Little, PhD student at UNC, arrested for defacing Confederate monument with red ink and blood

"I didn’t do anything that was violent. I was adding context to the statue.”

Originally published 05/03/2018
Georgia candidate likens removing Confederate monuments to Taliban regime

“I cringe at the idea that we would destroy art for political purposes,” Shafer said. “It reminds me of when the Taliban was toppling all of the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan. That’s not something I agree with or support.”

Originally published 05/02/2018
College of Charleston students envision ways to 'outshine' John C. Calhoun monument

"These students, they have a great social conscience," Nathaniel Walker, an architectural history professor at the College of Charleston said. "They want our historic landscapes to be more empowering for everybody."

Originally published 04/18/2018
Tennessee lawmakers punish Memphis for removing statues

Last year the city of Memphis, which is majority black, was able to find a legal loophole to get rid of two Confederate statues and a bust by selling city parks to a nonprofit.

Originally published 04/18/2018
Alabama governor defends Confederate monuments: We don't need 'out-of-state liberals' telling us what to do

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) released a campaign ad touting an act she signed last year to protect Confederate monuments in the state.

Originally published 04/17/2018
New York City Orders Sims Statue Removed From Central Park

A statue of J. Marion Sims, an 19th century surgical pioneer who experimented on female slaves, will be moved to the Brooklyn cemetery where he is buried.

Originally published 04/02/2018
First it was Confederate monuments. Now statues offensive to Native Americans are poised to topple across the U.S.

No other city has taken down a monument to a president for his misdeeds, but Arcata is poised to do just that with a statue of William McKinley.

Originally published 03/29/2018
Demoting “Maryland, My Maryland” Ends a Struggle Begun by Black Baltimoreans in 1863

Martha S. Jones

Another pillar of the Lost Cause myth falls.

Originally published 03/28/2018
New Orleans mayor to receive Profile in Courage Award for removing Confederate monuments

The John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award, created in 1989, is presented annually to public servants “who have made courageous decisions of conscience without regard for the personal or professional consequences.”

Originally published 03/20/2018
Florida to replace Confederate statue in US Capitol

A statue of Confederate Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith will be replaced with one of Mary McLeod Bethune, who founded a school that would eventually become historically black Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida.

Originally published 03/12/2018
Confederate 'monuments were a lie,' Mitch Landrieu says on '60 Minutes'

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu appeared on CBS' "60 Minutes" on Sunday evening (March 11), during which he described the four Confederate monuments he removed as "a lie," and discussed how they had been erected as an attempt to redefine history.

Originally published 02/28/2018
Charlottesville judge orders shrouds removed from Confederate statues

A judge in Charlottesville ruled Tuesday that local officials must take down the black shrouds covering two Confederate monuments while a lawsuit continues over the city’s plan to permanently remove the controversial statues.

Originally published 02/21/2018
How the Activists Who Tore Down Durham's Confederate Statue Got Away With It

The district attorney in Durham, North Carolina, dismissed all remaining charges in the August case. What does that mean for the future of statues around the country?

Originally published 02/19/2018
S.C. museum seeking $350,000 to display Statehouse Confederate flags

A South Carolina museum is sending a $350,000 request to lawmakers for displaying a pair of Confederate flags that flew over the Statehouse grounds, but its leaders have another suggestion: showcase the banners someplace else.

Originally published 02/15/2018
Savannah Approves Changes to Confederate Monument From 1875

Savannah renaming its 143-year-old Confederate monument to honor all soldiers killed in the Civil War.

Originally published 02/01/2018
Florida moves to replace Confederate statue in US Capitol

The state Senate voted unanimously Wednesday to install a statue of educator Mary McLeod Bethune in the spot where a statue of Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith still stands.

Originally published 01/25/2018
Chicago’s Got a Statue Problem too

Wallace Hettle

It’s this giant monument to Stephen A. Douglas.

Originally published 01/24/2018
It’s Not Just Statues that Are a Problem in New York City

Alan Singer

There are also place names that should be changed, like the one honoring Herald Square.

Originally published 01/18/2018
How Do We Get from the Statues We Have to the Statues We Want?

Bruce W. Dearstyne

The New York City Monuments Commission has some ideas.

Originally published 01/17/2018
State lawmaker files bill to remove Virginia's Robert E. Lee statue from U.S. Capitol

Several lawmakers have filed bills to give localities the power to remove Confederate monuments and relocate them to museums, nullifying a state law aimed at preventing local officials from removing or altering war memorials.

Originally published 01/08/2018
This Confederate Statue Was Art

Ed Hooper

Should there have been an outcry over the decision in Memphis to pull it down?

Originally published 12/27/2017
Ron Chernow’s Biography of US Grant is caught up in the fight over Confederate statues

Albert R. Hunt

In the Wall Street Journal Al Hunt says the book shows why Virginia should fret a statue to Grant.

Originally published 12/21/2017
Memphis's Novel Strategy for Tearing Down Confederate Statues

In a surprise move Wednesday evening, the city sold two parks to a nonprofit corporation that promptly tore down monuments to Nathan Bedford Forrest and Jefferson Davis.

Originally published 12/11/2017
Video of the Week: The Painful History of a Confederate Monument Tells Itself

Emily Buder

The history of a single monument is writ large in Pettengill's new short film, Graven Image, produced by Field of Vision.

Originally published 12/07/2017
Seton Hall University's William Connell tells NPR why Italian-Americans embraced Columbus

Professor Connell tells how although Italians did not come to this country venerating Columbus, they found here an American public that did.

Originally published 12/06/2017
Academics and Artists Weigh In on Controversial City Monuments

In an open letter published on Friday by Hyperallergic, more than 120 academics and artists have urged Mayor Bill de Blasio to remove five public monuments and markers they say celebrate racism.

Originally published 12/05/2017
What Historians Keep Getting Wrong about Robert E. Lee

Colin Woodward

To start with, he wasn't an aristocrat.

Originally published 11/29/2017
What the New York Times’ Nazi Story Left Out

The history of America has been written by normal white racists living in normal towns.

Originally published 11/27/2017
Atlanta's Confederate Avenue evokes Old South, but may get new name

Atlanta is among several cities -- including New Orleans, Baltimore, Dallas and Richmond, Virginia -- that have been reviewing Confederate symbols.

Originally published 11/15/2017
Felony charges dropped against 7 accused of tearing down Durham Confederate statue

Durham County’s District Attorney Roger Echols said there was no evidence that those charged “physically participated in taking the statue down.”

Originally published 11/15/2017
Scholars of Slavery Force a Public Reckoning

As America confronts its past, historians are asking new questions, pushing colleges, corporations, cities, museums, and governments to account for their ties to slavery.

Originally published 11/15/2017
A Lost Cause confession from Georgia’s oldest historical publication

The Georgia Historical Quarterly’s lead article is a take-down of Confederate mythologizer E. Merton Coulter, who ran the periodical for a half century.

Originally published 11/13/2017
Maybe Confederate Monuments Stand for Something Different than What We Think

David Hosansky

And that’s the folly of giving in to wild, unreasoning beliefs.

Originally published 11/09/2017
The Civil War Never Stopped Being Fought in America’s Classrooms

Arica L. Coleman

Here’s why that matters.

Originally published 11/08/2017
There’s Yet Another Way We Can Deal with Confederate Monuments

Philip Gerard

Wrap them in a shroud.

Originally published 11/07/2017
There Are More Imaginative Ways to Deal with Confederate Statues than Tearing Them Down

Roy E. Finkenbine

Here are two examples.

Originally published 11/07/2017
A Confederate Curriculum

Jonathan Zimmerman

How Miss Millie taught the Civil War.

Originally published 11/06/2017
UC Davis History Department holds “Ask A Historian” forum in new way to communicate with students

The forum was held to answer questions about white nationalism and Charlottesville.

Originally published 10/31/2017
What Should We Do with Confederate Monuments?

Dane Kennedy

A standing-room-only crowd gathered at the Rayburn House Office Building to hear three leading authorities on the subject: David Blight, Karen Cox, and Gaines Foster.

Originally published 10/31/2017
America Has Been Fighting Over Statues Since the Founding

Stephen F. Knott

Two centuries ago, another monument fight captured American politics: Hamilton vs. Jefferson.

Originally published 10/30/2017
Virginia church to move plaques honoring Lee and Washington

In response to violent protests over the fate of a Confederate statue in Charlottesville, Virginia earlier this year, a 244-year-old Episcopal church in Alexandria is planning to move a set of plaques honoring former parishioners Robert E. Lee and George Washington.

Originally published 10/27/2017
The Next Battle Over Monuments? It Will Be Those for the Founding Fathers.

Philip Jenkins

If you were a slave during the Revolution who would you have been rooting for? The British.

Originally published 10/27/2017
A sign on scrubland marks one of America's largest slave uprisings. Is this how to remember black heroes?

The Stono rebellion of 1739 was the biggest slave rebellion in Britain’s North American colonies but it is barely commemorated – unlike Confederate leaders.

Originally published 10/25/2017
What Can We Do About Those Confederate Monuments: A Proposal

Wallace Hettle

“My ideas here may seem odd; they certainly are not realistic. However, our present situation is even more absurd.”

Originally published 10/24/2017
Now even communities in Georgia are voting to take down Confederate memorials

The DeKalb County Commission voted Tuesday to attempt to move a 109-year-old monument honoring the Confederacy.

Originally published 10/24/2017
This Woman Helped Inspire the South to Put Up All Those Monuments to the Confederacy

Leon Anijar

Her name was Mildred Lewis Rutherford. She was the historian of the Daughters of the Confederacy.

Originally published 10/23/2017
A Confederate general who was erased from history

Roanoke Times Editorial

The conversation these days is about whether Confederate statues should be taken down. Here’s a question nobody is asking: Which Confederate statues should we be putting up? Why are there not statues to William Mahone?

Originally published 10/20/2017
To Be Continued, or Who Lost the Civil War?

Keenan Norris

The possibility that the victors do not necessarily write the histories is an interesting one.

Originally published 10/18/2017
Beyond Monuments: African Americans Contesting Civil War Memory

Ashleigh Lawrence-Sanders

African Americans have always had the burden of both asserting their own histories and narratives while battling against the ones that sought to marginalize them.

Originally published 10/17/2017
Civil War’s legacy hangs over a plaque honoring Confederate soldiers

A plaque honoring Confederate soldiers was placed on the Jefferson County Courthouse in West Virginia, where slaves were once sold.

Originally published 10/17/2017
Confederate statues still stand in rural Virginia

The chorus of opposition to Confederate monuments has yet to strike a chord in southwestern Virginia, where the service of the “brave men and women” who fought and died for the Confederacy is enshrined in the statue of a soldier in the center of the city.

Originally published 10/11/2017
Trump’s Interior Head: If We Take Down Confederate Statues, American Indians Will Complain Next

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke says that if Confederate monuments are taken down, there’s no telling how far America might go —Native Americans could call for the removal of statues commemorating leaders who orchestrated violence against their ancestors.

Originally published 10/11/2017
South Carolina Lawmakers Propose Statue Honoring Black Confederate Soldiers

The problem is, the notion of a black soldier fighting for his beloved South is a myth, according to historians.

Originally published 10/10/2017
His grandfather was a slave. Now he's a vocal champion for Confederate monuments.

Nelson Winbush relishes talking about his grandfather’s time as a Confederate soldier, fighting at the command of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general, slave trader and imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.

Originally published 10/09/2017
British Historian: It’s Urgent that Americans Finally Reject the Moral Equivalence of the North and South in the Civil War

Robert Cook

It’s stopping Americans from addressing their real problems.

Originally published 10/05/2017
As Confederate statues come down, what about Columbus?

While historians caution against lumping in Columbus with Confederates who came three centuries later, they say Columbus’ holiday and monuments remain ripe for reassessment — whether they stay, change or vanish entirely.

Originally published 10/04/2017
Should America Take Down Monuments That Romanticize Conquistadors?

“There’s a bigger issue here, and that is what it means to tell the truth about history,” says Stephanie Fryberg, a professor of American Indian Studies and Psychology at the University of Washington.

Originally published 09/28/2017
Was Robert E. Lee a “Woman Whipper”?

John Reeves

Lee’s sorry record as a slave owner, whether he was guilty of the charge of “woman whipper” or not.

Originally published 09/28/2017
Removing Monuments Won’t Fix Our Problems

Amy Werbel

A lesson from the campaign against censorship in the 19th century shows why.

Originally published 09/25/2017
Spain Banished Its Franco Monuments, Can We Do the Same for Lee?

James Thornton Harris

It’s long past time we did so.

Originally published 09/22/2017
Could the Governor’s Race in Virginia Turn on the Question of Confederate Monuments?

Bruce W. Dearstyne

It might. History shows why history and politics don’t mix well.

Originally published 09/21/2017
Battle Over Confederate Monuments Moves to the Cemeteries

Calls to remove cemetery monuments are raising questions. Are such monuments really on public display? Should they be treated like the ones in public squares?

Originally published 09/20/2017
Eric Foner discusses the manipulation of history

Foner, author of “Battles for Freedom: The Use and Abuse of American History,” discusses confederate monuments, the role of the historian and the lies of omission.

Originally published 09/19/2017
The Making and the Breaking of the Legend of Robert E. Lee

Eric Foner

Whatever the fate of his statues and memorials, so long as the legacy of slavery continues to bedevil American society, it seems unlikely that historians will return Lee, metaphorically speaking, to his pedestal.

Originally published 09/18/2017
What Happens When an Entire Campus Is Rooted in the Confederacy?

That's the question facing administrators as students return to campus across the South.

Originally published 09/18/2017
Peter Dreier calls on Americans to build monuments to liberal heroes

Peter Dreier

The organizers, activists, artists, writers, athletes, judges and occasional elected officials who fought to make the United States a more humane and inclusive country often go unacknowledged.

Originally published 09/15/2017
When History’s Losers Write the Story

It’s a worldwide phenomenon.

Originally published 09/13/2017
University of Virginia President Says Protesters Who Shrouded Jefferson Statue ‘Desecrated’ Campus

The protest occurred on the one-month anniversary of the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville.

Originally published 09/13/2017
Virginia Military Institute leaders say military college will keep Confederate statues

Other vestiges of the school’s Confederate ties — such as battle flags, the playing of “Dixie” and cadet salutes to a statue of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson — already have been phased out.

Originally published 09/13/2017
We Legitimize the ‘So-Called’ Confederacy With Our Vocabulary, and That’s a Problem, say some historians

Christopher Wilson

Tearing down monuments is only the beginning to understanding the false narrative of Jim Crow.

Originally published 09/11/2017
Let’s Keep the Central Park Statue of Dr. James Marion Sims

Steven Lomazow

He’s getting a bum rap from critics.

Originally published 09/07/2017
Washington National Cathedral to remove stained glass windows honoring Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson

Leaders at Washington National Cathedral, the closest thing in the country’s capital to an official church, have decided after two years of study and debate to remove two stained-glass windows honoring Confederate figures Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

Originally published 09/07/2017
The Preacher Whose Statue Was Booted for Reagan

Gil Troy

A decade ago, the anti-slavery preacher Thomas Starr King was removed from the Capitol and replaced by Ronald Reagan. Maybe his statue should be placed in a certain white house.

Originally published 09/05/2017
Karen L. Cox says historians need to use their power now

Karen L. Cox

"Today, humanities scholars are roundly criticized for being irrelevant. But this is simply not true as recent events have shown."

Originally published 09/04/2017
Why We Should Remove the Central Park Statue of Dr. James Marion Sims

Alan Singer

Even by the standards of his own day, his operations on black slave women were abhorrent.

Originally published 09/04/2017
Down with Stonewall Jackson! He’s Just Like Lenin.

David Mould

All around the world statues of historic figures are falling. Removing them is just like editing inconvenient ideas from textbooks.

Originally published 09/04/2017
Historian Peter S. Carmichael says that the debate about Confederate statues is obscuring what we should be talking about

The director of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College says what we should be focusing on is racial injustice.

Originally published 09/04/2017
Bryn Mawr wrong to cleanse campus of references to former president

Jonathan Zimmerman

When we remove the physical traces of discredited historical figures, we give ourselves more credit than we deserve. We forget that we live in history, too, and that we will be judged by it as well.

Originally published 09/04/2017
Targeted Central Park statue’s subject has complicated history

His name is J. Marion Sims. Should he be remembered as the father of modern gynecology or for his experiments on black slaves?

Originally published 09/04/2017
Charleston mayor's idea to amend Confederate markers, monuments receives mixed reviews

Mayor John Tecklenburg's latest strategy to amend some Confederate-related monuments and add some new ones recognizing African-American history has been met with a range of reactions so far from Charleston residents, historians and community leaders.

Originally published 08/31/2017
How Charlottesville Got that Robert E. Lee Statue

Bruce W. Dearstyne

It was thanks to a philanthropist who also paid for a park in honor of Booker T. Washington.

Originally published 08/31/2017
Historians' leading organization says it's ok to remove Confederate statues

To remove such monuments is neither to “change” history nor “erase” it.

Originally published 08/24/2017
Liberals Shouldn’t Let the Fight over Confederate Statues Dominate Public Debate

John L. Godwin

1. The monuments do not merely represent the Confederate cause or the racist beliefs of the people who erected them. 2. The fight over symbols distracts us from the fight for social justice.

Originally published 08/24/2017
When To Stop Honoring A Questionable Historical Figure?

Colorado had that debate decades ago.

Originally published 08/23/2017
The Chronicle off Higher Ed’s latest task?

It’s chronicling Confederate monuments on college campuses – and wants your help.

Originally published 08/23/2017
Mike Pence on Confederate Statues: I'm "Someone Who Believes in More Monuments"

He told Fox & Friends "what we have to walk away from is a desire by some to erase parts of our history just in the name of some contemporary political cause."

Originally published 08/22/2017
Kevin Levin says he’s changed his mind about Confederate statues

Kevin M. Levin

They should go.

Originally published 08/22/2017
Trump’s Defense of Confederate Symbols and Its Threat to Color-Blind Liberalism

Tim Messer-Kruse

American color-blind liberalism depends on a less messy history, one with the moral clarity that is useful to deny the inherently racist nature of American government and society.

Originally published 08/22/2017
Worshiping the Confederacy is about white supremacy — even the Nazis thought so

Nina Silber

Confederate memory nurtured fascism.

Originally published 08/22/2017
Baltimore’s Confederate Monument Was Never About ‘History And Culture’

Jane Dailey

Why would a city in a state that sat out the Civil War erect a monument to Confederate generals in 1948?

Originally published 08/22/2017
Jon Meacham points out why Lee should go but Washington should stay

Jon Meacham

Lee had it right: “I think it wiser,” he wrote in 1866, “not to keep open the sores of war.”

Originally published 08/21/2017
What those monuments stand for

Manisha Sinha

There is one thing that the white supremacists and neo-Nazis who rallied to the defense of Robert E. Lee’s statue in Charlottesville got right: They understood the historical meaning of Confederate monuments.

Originally published 08/21/2017
New Confederate monuments are going up and these are the people behind them

Since 2007, John Culpepper had been anticipating this moment: the unveiling of a statue to the common Confederate soldier in his hometown of Chickamauga, Georgia. In November of last year, three days before Donald Trump won the presidency, it became a reality.

Originally published 08/21/2017
"I've studied the history of Confederate memorials. Here's what to do about them."

W. Fitzhugh Brundage

UNC's W. Fitzhugh Brundage recommends removing them. "Whatever value they have as historical artifacts, they were not the work of some latter-day Michelangelo."

Originally published 08/21/2017
Confederate Statues and ‘Our’ History

Eric Foner

When Mr. Trump identifies statues commemorating Confederate leaders as essential parts of “our” history and culture, he is honoring a dark period in our history when citizenship was restricted to white people.

Originally published 08/21/2017
Trump Aside, Artists and Preservationists Debate the Rush to Topple Statues

Many said that even though they fiercely oppose President Trump and his defense of Confederate statues, they saw the removal of the monuments as precipitous and argued that the widening effort to eliminate them could have troubling implications for artistic expression.

Originally published 08/18/2017
Political Rage Over Statues? Old News in the Old World

Recent episodes of rage and bloodshed over the removal of Confederate statues in the United States have a familiar ring for Europeans, who have been battling over their historical narratives and tearing down statues of noxious former leaders since the Bronze Age — and probably before.

Originally published 08/18/2017
Eric Foner says in an interview that it’s not necessary to remove Confederate statues

Instead, he advocates putting up new ones to people like John M. Langston, a black member of Congress from Virginia in the 1880s.

Originally published 08/17/2017
There are certain moments in US history when Confederate monuments go up

There are two distinct spikes: one around the turn of the 20th century, and one during the height of the civil rights movement.

Originally published 08/17/2017
Jeffersonian Democracy after Charlottesville

Matthew Crow

We should think long and hard before we let enemies of the Republic claim one of its creators as their own.

Originally published 08/17/2017
Charlottesville Violence Spurs New Resistance to Confederate Symbols

Local and state officials in states like North Carolina, Texas and Tennessee are facing the outrage of liberal and African-American constituencies, who say the statues should have never gone up in the first place.

Originally published 08/16/2017
Baltimore Removes Confederate Statues in Overnight Operation

Beginning soon after midnight on Wednesday, a crew, which included a large crane and a contingent of police officers, began making rounds of the city’s parks and public squares, tearing the monuments from their pedestals and carting them out of town.

Originally published 08/16/2017
Hollywood Forever Cemetery to remove Confederate monument after calls from activists and vandalism threats

Since 1925, the 6-foot monument has stood in the Confederate section of the cemetery, where more than 30 Confederate veterans, along with their families, are buried.

Originally published 08/16/2017
There Shouldn’t Be any Statues Honoring Robert E. Lee Anywhere

Ed Simon

To remove Confederate memorials is not to white-wash history, far from it. It’s to finally remove the stain which concealed for too many Americans the reasons for why that hideous war was fought.

Originally published 08/15/2017
The Civil War, race and the whitewashing of history

Jonathan Zimmerman

The vast majority of Confederate memorials — including the Lee statue in Charlottesville — were erected in the early 20th century.

Originally published 08/15/2017
Why Does This Georgia Town Honor One of America's Worst War Criminals?

Greg Bailey

The monument to Confederate officer Henry Wirz is down the road from the graveyard of his many victims.

Originally published 08/15/2017
Protesters pull down Confederate statue in North Carolina

The monument, dedicated in 1924, depicts a soldier holding a gun on top of a concrete pillar. The pillar is engraved "In memory of the boys who wore gray."

Originally published 08/14/2017
What to do with Confederate statues?

James Glaser

Could Russia teach us something about how to deal with difficult aspects of our national history?

Originally published 08/14/2017
Texas historians are pushing to remove Confederate symbols in Dallas

“These statues were put in place in an era when, number one — it was the height of lynching, number two — it was a period of disenfranchisement, poll taxes and literacy tests and number three — it was a period of segregation.”

Originally published 08/13/2017
Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville: What Historians Are Saying on Social Media

HNN Staff

Tweets and retweets from historians on both the left and the right.

Originally published 08/13/2017
White nationalists picked Charlottesville for a reason

Long a haven for racists – it was the last town in America to desegregate schools following the Supreme Court’s ruling on Brown v. Board of Education – Charlottesville turned liberal and this spring voted to remove a Confederate monument to Robert E. Lee.

Originally published 08/12/2017
Charlottesville debated removing a statue of Robert E. Lee. Then white nationalists came to town.

The debate over the statue began about a year and a half ago, when an African-American high school student here started a petition to have it removed.

Originally published 08/03/2017
South Carolina governor candidate Catherine Templeton's 'proud of the Confederacy' remarks stir controversy

She made waves in her first public forum as gubernatorial candidate by saying she is “proud of the Confederacy" and pledged “we’re not going to rewrite history” by removing Confederate monuments.

Originally published 07/13/2017
Can Richmond avoid public rows over its Confederate statues?

The mayor of what was the capital of the Confederacy wants to preserve its statues, but ensure the full history is told.

Originally published 07/11/2017
KKK protested removal of Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville. Counter protest drew more people.

“Hundreds of local citizens rose up in a non-violent protest against the hate that was being spewed in Justice Park.”

Originally published 07/07/2017
Monumental Rubbish: With the Statues Torn Down, What Next for New Orleans?

Adolph Reed Jr.

The city is unquestionably better for ridding itself of these symbols of white supremacy, but a focus on the past must not sidestep the need to confront what actually reproduces inequality in the present.

Originally published 07/03/2017
Confederate street names stir debate in ... New York City?

Two of the Confederate Army’s best-known leaders have streets named for them in a place not normally associated with the Southern side of the Civil War – New York City. Now some elected officials are trying to undo it.

Originally published 07/02/2017
Annette Gordon-Reed says that no one needs to worry we’ll start taking down statues of Jefferson & Washington

They were slaveholders, but there’s a big difference between them and the leaders of the Confederacy.

Originally published 06/28/2017
Confederate Monuments and the Forgotten Warning of a Crisis to Come

Ibram X. Kendi

Not every aspect of that heritage and history is well known.

Originally published 06/15/2017
Removing the Confederate Monuments In New Orleans Was Only a First Step Toward Righting the Wrongs of History

Scott P. Marler

The real sanitization of the past happened when the statues were put up. To correct the record, a museum of Reconstruction should take their place.

Originally published 06/14/2017
The Confederate flag largely disappeared after the Civil War, so what happened?

The fight against civil rights brought it back.

Originally published 06/13/2017
Alt-Right Tricked into Thinking Liberals now Were Going after a Statue of Sam Houston

But when they showed up they found out otherwise.

Originally published 06/06/2017
Black Leaders in Ariz. Push for Removal of State’s Confederate Monuments

The battle against Confederate symbols and memorials was brought to the forefront of national conversation almost exactly two years ago when white supremacist Dylann Roof killed nine black parishioners and injured several others in a historic black church in Charleston, S.C.

Originally published 06/05/2017
Are Boston’s statues honoring all the right men?

Among the statues some are raising questions about is one for Columbus. Another is one honoring historian Samuel Eliot Morison.

Originally published 06/02/2017
Max Boot calls on the Pentagon to drop Confederate names of military installations

Max Boot

"Bad history begets bad politics.”

Originally published 06/02/2017
Why I Decided to Remove 4 Confederate Monuments

Mitch Landrieu

The 23-minute speech that has drawn wide attention.

Originally published 05/29/2017
Few in St. Louis Knew Confederate Memorial Existed. Now, Many Want It Gone.

The antimonument activists have a powerful lineup of city officials on their side, including Lyda Krewson, the newly elected mayor of St. Louis, who said that she favored removing the Confederate Memorial from the park permanently.

Originally published 05/19/2017
New Orleans removes monument to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee

“They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history." – Mayor Mitch Landrieu

Originally published 05/18/2017
Yale’s David Blight is asked if New Orleans should rewrite its Civil War legacy

"One thing that is always an answer is: To build new monuments rather than tear down old ones."

Originally published 05/17/2017
One More To Go: New Orleans Takes Down Civil War General's Statue

Workers removed a statue of Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard on horseback from its spot at the entrance of City Park. One more statue remains to be taken down, of Gen. Robert E. Lee.

Originally published 05/14/2017
White nationalist Richard Spencer leads torch-bearing protesters defending Lee statue

The evening protest was short-lived. About 10 minutes in, an altercation between Spencer’s group and counterprotesters drew police to the scene, and the crowd quickly dispersed.

Originally published 05/13/2017
Now a Jefferson Davis Statue in New Orleans Is Removed

Crews, wearing masks to cover their faces, worked under a heavy police presence starting at 3 a.m. Thursday to dismantle the statue, which was erected in 1911, nearly 50 years after the end of the war, and commissioned by the Jefferson Davis Memorial Association.

Originally published 05/09/2017
Condoleezza Rice argues tearing down slave owners’ statues is ‘sanitizing’ history

“When you start wiping out your history, sanitizing your history to make you feel better, it’s a bad thing,” Rice said.

Originally published 05/08/2017
The Stubborn Persistence of Confederate Monuments

A new report identifies some 1,500 memorials to the Civil War’s losing cause, from schools to state holidays, ranging from the Deep South to the Pacific Northwest.

Originally published 05/08/2017
Tempers Flare Over Removal of Confederate Statues in New Orleans

The city has already taken down one monument, but crane companies in the region are receiving threats over the removal of three others.

Originally published 04/27/2017
South Carolina Republican: scrap slave memorial if Confederate monument goes

Sheri Few, who is running for South Carolina’s fifth congressional district, has said the removal of a Confederate monument in the state should be matched by the removal of a memorial to African American slaves. And if elected, she said she would focus on “fighting the destruction of every bit of Confederate memorabilia in our country.”

Originally published 04/24/2017
New Orleans begins controversial removal of Confederate monuments

The controversial removal was the first of four scheduled relocations of Confederate memorials in the city, despite weeks of opposition from pro-monument groups and threats against workers.

Originally published 02/28/2017
Jesse Jackson: It’s ok to leave Confederate monuments in place, but tell the full story

“To keep on flashing these symbols and statues, they should be put in perspective, maybe a museum, or if they stay where they are, write up a true story of what they represent.”

Originally published 10/17/2016
Roger B. Taney Was as Bad as You Think

Jeremy J. Tewell

He may never have joined the Confederacy, but he wholeheartedly embraced slavery, despite what the New York Times says.

Originally published 07/03/2015
Confederate Monuments Don't Belong on the Landscapes of Government

Karen L. Cox

Not all public spaces are alike, and when it comes to government-sanctioned spaces like local courthouses and state capitols, an argument can and should be made for their removal.

Originally published 11/25/2013
‘Scottsboro Boys’ pardoned in Alabama

"Today, the Scottsboro Boys have finally received justice," Gov. Robert Bentley said.

Originally published 11/12/2013
‘Ask a Slave’ talks race and gender issues in the age of YouTube

The web series is the brainchild of Azie Dungey, a former actor at Mount Vernon.

Originally published 10/21/2013
Why do we fear poisoned Halloween candy?

Blame the media.

Originally published 10/20/2013
Why Things are Looking Good for Israel

Jonathan (Yoni) Shimshoni and Nimrod Hurvitz

The Arab Spring, Iranian sanctions, the Syrian civil war, and the fall of the Brotherhood in Egypt have all strengthened the Israeli strategic position.

Originally published 02/06/2018
Florida Is Doing the Right Thing. May Other States Follow Quickly.

Jim Loewen

Florida is replacing its Confederate statue in the U.S. Capitol. So should other Southern states.

Originally published 03/22/2017
Rockville’s Confederate Monument Belongs at White’s Ferry

Jim Loewen

The monument was false to Maryland's history.

Originally published 09/03/2015
The Monument to White Power that Still Stands in New Orleans

Jim Loewen

It's a disgrace. It should be moved to a museum.

Originally published 07/31/2015
Time to De-Confederatize the Textbook, "The American Journey": An Open Letter to James McPherson

Jim Loewen

Why doesn't James McPherson's textbook say the same things about secession and Civil War that his famed history of the war does? Maybe he never wrote it?