The Lee statue at the center of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia was just melted. Here is Teo Armus and Hadley Green at The Washington Post: It was a choice to melt down Robert E. Lee....
Here is Juliana Kim at National Public Radio: President Biden will designate a national monument at three sites in honor of Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley — both of whom served as catalysts for the civil rights movement. Biden is...
Whatever happened to that statue of George Washington in a toga? Here is Ronald Shafer at The Washington Post: Slowly, some of the U.S. Capitol’s many statues and other artworks honoring enslavers have been slated for removal, most recently a bust of Roger...
I’ve spent a little time studying Princeton University’s history over the years. My first book was on a Witherspoon student who studied at Princeton (then the College of New Jersey) between 1770 and 1772. My second book covered Witherspoon’s role...
The statue of the Confederate general was Richmond’s last city-owned Confederate statue. Here is a taste of Paul Waldman’s piece at The Washington Post: The Lost Cause is dying with a whimper. For that, thank the committed activists who made...
More and more colleges and universities are coming to grips with their connections to slavery. Here is historian Jody Lynn Allen at Perspectives on History: In the 1930s, William & Mary (W&M) constructed a four-foot brick wall around the oldest...
Wendy Bellion, an art historian at the University of Delaware, has an interesting piece at Smithsonian Magazine on the patriots’ toppling of this statue and a New York Historical Society exhibit on monuments. Here is a taste: A monument to...
It was a really strange statue that one website said “accurately reflects the ugliness of its subject.” D. Patrick Rodgers’s piece at Nashville Scene is titled “Nathan Bedford Forrest Has Fallen.” Here is a taste: The Confederacy has fallen. Again....
The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center will melt it down and turn it into a new piece of public art. Here is Eduardo Medina at The New York Times: The City Council of Charlottesville, Va., voted on Tuesday to...
Here is the Associated Press: A towering statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia, will be taken down on Wednesday as a symbol of racial injustice, more than 130 years after it was erected in tribute to...
A Common Pleas court judge overturned the City of Philadelphia’s decision to remove the statue last year during the racial unrest following the death of George Floyd. Here is The Philadelphia Inquirer: A Philadelphia judge on Tuesday ruled that the...
For some historical context on Confederate monuments check out our interview with Karen L. Cox in the latest episode of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast. The vote was 285 to 120. This means that 120 Republicans wanted to...
Historian Karen L. Cox argues that “when it comes to Confederate monuments, there is no common ground.” In this episode, we talk with Cox about the history of Confederate monuments and how the recent racial unrest in the United States...
I just ran across Marc Fisher’s piece at The Washington Post on a Virginia “Johnny Reb” statue that was removed and taken to a local cemetery. Here is a taste: “I’m not sure cemeteries get us any closer to a...
Remember Donald Trump’s “National Garden of American Heroes?” Joe Biden just canceled it. Here is Zeke Miller at the Associated Press: President Joe Biden on Friday put the kibosh on his predecessor’s planned “National Garden of American Heroes” and revoked...
I understand Wheaton College’s decision to change this plaque. It is probably the right move. Here is Megan Fowler at Christianity Today; More than 65 years after two of its alumni were killed in what became the most famous example...
For the record, Nathan Bedford Forrest was a Confederate Army general and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Now here is a taste of Kyle Horan’s story at NewsChannel 5 in Nashville: Not even two weeks after...
Here is Stephen Salisbury at The Philadelphia Inquirer: The Newseum, an interactive museum in Washington, D.C., devoted to journalism, is gone, succumbing to financial woes. It closed at the end of 2019. But while the building on Pennsylvania Avenue has...
Last week we published a post on Chicago’s decision to consider removing some of its monuments. A city-sponsored group known as The Chicago Monuments Project have identified 41 monuments for public discussion because of the following issues: Promoting narratives of...
The city of Chicago recently launched a group called The Chicago Monuments Project. Here is the project’s mission statement: The Chicago Monuments Project intends to grapple with the often unacknowledged – or forgotten – history associated with the City’s various municipal...
