The angry protestors are coming for public statues of historic Americans as diverse as Confederate traitors like Robert E. Lee and slave-owning American founders like George Washington. But what do you do when a school building or an entire school system is the monument representing past wrongs? That might be more of a problem than you think.
Virginia has removed from its iconic state capitol the busts and a statue honoring Confederate generals and officials. That includes a bronze statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee positioned in the same spot where he stood to assume command of the state’s armed forces in the Civil War nearly 160 years ago.
The policy, laid out in a memo released Friday, was described by officials as a creative way to bar the flag’s display without openly contradicting or angering President Donald Trump, who has defended people’s rights to display it.
Mississippi’s House and Senate voted in succession Sunday afternoon to retire the flag, each chamber drawing broad bipartisan support for the historic decision. Republican Gov. Tate Reeves has said he will sign the bill, and the state flag would lose its official status as soon as he signs the measure.
The battle emblem — a red field topped by a blue X with 13 white stars — has been in the upper-left corner of the Mississippi flag since 1894. White supremacists in the Legislature put it there during backlash to the political power that African Americans gained after the Civil War.
President Donald J. Trump is intentional when it comes to masking his racism. He creates the illusion that he’s for racial unity by using American symbols of liberty without delivering the whole history.
A top official in the Virginia city where a white nationalist rally erupted in violence in 2017 has called for renewing discussions about removing two Confederate statues, one of which became the focus of the rally.
