monuments

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• SOURCE: Virginian-Pilot
  3/1/2021
  

  How a Wave of Segregationist Tributes, from Streets to Schools, Entrenched the Idea of White Supremacy

  Understanding the stakes of renaming public buildings, streets, or schools requires understanding the purposeful politics that attached the names of Confederates to public spaces a century ago, say Virginia historians Dan Margolies and Calvin Pearson.

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• SOURCE: National Parks Traveler
  2/25/2021
  

  Op-Ed | Confederate Memorials Serve A Role In National Parks

  by Harry Butowski

  "The removal of existing statues in our Civil War parks will not change our history, but make it more difficult to confront and examine our history. National parks are the great American classroom where American history is taught."

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• SOURCE: WABE
  3/1/2021
  

  Ga. Lawmaker Authors Bills To Abolish Confederate Monuments In Peach State

  Georgia state representative Shelly Hutchinson argues that while Confederate monuments stand,"there’s no healing that takes place there, and that means you are OK with where we are at as a country.”

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/23/2021
  

  SPLC: Over 160 Confederate Symbols Were Removed in 2020

  "The nonprofit organization, based in Montgomery, Ala., started tracking symbols of the Confederacy after a white supremacist killed nine Black worshipers at a storied African-American church in Charleston, S.C., in 2015."

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• SOURCE: Chicago Tribune
  2/22/2021
  

  Take Down Chicago’s Lincoln Statues? It’s Iconoclasm Gone Mad

  by Sidney Blumenthal and Harold Holzer

  Two biographers of Lincoln question the Chicago Monuments Project, which has placed famous statues of the 16th president on a list of public memorials subject to possible removal.

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• SOURCE: National Parks Traveler
  2/22/2021
  

  The Future Of Confederate Monuments

  by Kim O'Connell

  “The Park Service needs to ask, ‘Who’s coming to your site and who’s not coming to your site?’” says Denise Meringolo, a professor of public history at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “Those monuments are a barrier to significant portions of the audience, for whom they are not simply inaccurate or annoying. They are traumatizing.”

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/2/2021
  

  Trump’s 1776 Commission and the San Francisco Board of Education Have a Lot in Common

  by Max Boot

  "It is no surprise that the 1776 Commission did not include a single expert on U.S. history and that the San Francisco school board also refused to consult historians."

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  2/2/2021
  

  San Francisco’s Ridiculous Renaming Spree

  If those on the right were looking for an example to condemn the trend of renaming public facilities because of the misdeeds of prominent historical figures, they couldn't have asked for more than the slapdash actions of the San Francisco school board, writes journalist Gary Kamiya. 

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• SOURCE: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
  3/3/2021
  

  New Bills Target Stone Mountain, Confederate Monuments Across Georgia

  Two bills would act to broadly prohibit the maintenance or construction of Confederate monuments except in museums or on Civil War battlefields and authorize the state-chartered agency that maintains Stone Mountain Park to remove or modify the park's massive bas relief tribute to Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis. 

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• SOURCE: Mission Local
  1/28/2021
  

  The San Francisco School District’s Renaming Debacle Has Been A Historic Travesty

  "Our Board of Education chose to ratify each and every finding from the renaming committee — even when historical errors and methodological recklessness was known."

• 
• SOURCE: CNN
  1/27/2021
  

  San Francisco School Board Votes to Rename 44 Schools, Including Abraham Lincoln and George Washington High Schools

  The San Francisco School Board approved the renaming of 44 schools commemorating figures ranging from George Washington to Dianne Feinstein.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/25/2021
  

  A Monument Honoring Brooklyn Abolitionists Stalls Under Scrutiny

  “Whatever we build in Downtown Brooklyn should rival the Statue of Liberty,” said Raul Rothblatt, who has fought to preserve the area’s history for nearly 20 years. He added: “But instead, the city is planning to build a dog park above where tunnels once connected abolitionist homes.”

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• SOURCE: Smithsonian
  12/18/2020
  

  Why Just ‘Adding Context’ to Controversial Monuments May Not Change Minds

  by Erin Thompson

  Research shows that "adding context" to monuments with problematic subject matter does little to expand the understanding of history visitors take away from the scene.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  11/29/2020
  

  Let Trump Try To Defend Racist, Traitorous Confederates. Congress Can Still Prevail

  by Ty Seidule

  "This nation should honor those who fought bravely to defend it, not its enemies."

• 
• SOURCE: WAMU
  11/9/2020
  

  The Smithsonian Will Open A National Native American Veterans Memorial In D.C. Wednesday

  The National Native American Veterans Memorial will open with virtual programming, including a tour and video tribute, on Wednesday, November 11.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/8/2020
  

  Is There a Place for the President of the Confederacy?

  Removing Confederate monuments from public grounds to museums is easier said than done, drawing on scarce resources and pleasing few parties in the conflict over memorializing the CSA. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/5/2020
  

  Mellon Foundation to Spend $250 Million to Reimagine Monuments

  “The beauty of monuments as a rubric is, it’s really a way of asking, ‘How do we say who we are? How do we teach our history in public places?’” Elizabeth Alexander, the foundation’s president, said.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/28/2020
  

  Amid the Monument Wars, a Rally for ‘More History’

  “Historians have different views on taking down statues,” said Gregory Downs, a professor at the University of California, Davis, and one of the organizers. “But that debate doesn’t really capture what historians do, which is to bring more history.”

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• SOURCE: Outside
  9/28/2020
  

  The Problem of Confederate Statues on U.S. Public Lands

  Governments have recently addressed the problem of memorializing the Confederacy on public land. Why should monuments in cemeteries like Arlington or on Civil War battlefields be treated differently? 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  

  Four Principles to Guide Us on Whose Statues Should Topple and Whose Should Remain

  Kevin M. Levin, Lalane Schmidt, Kevin Gover and George Derek Musgrove are among the scholars offering perspective on how local community deliberations about problematic memorials should proceed.