Landmarks including Washington Monument should be ‘removed, relocated or contextualized’
[ad_1]
The mayor of Washington DC has been strongly criticized by the White House and on social media after a committee she founded to review the cities’ monuments and statues recommended the removal or contextualization of the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial.
Muriel Bowser formed DCFACES in July, amid a nationwide discussion about how America’s history should be represented, and who should be commemorated.
She said their job was ‘evaluating public spaces to ensure the namesake’s legacy is consistent with DC values’.
On Monday the 34 members of the working group delivered their report, which will now be reviewed and potentially implemented by the mayor.
The Washington Monument was identified as problematic by a committee in the US capital
The 34-member DCFACES committee also said the Jefferson Memorial should be reviewed
The Andrew Jackson statue outside the White House was among nine statues of concern
Muriel Bowser, mayor of Washington DC, said she would study the recommendations
They found nine statues and monuments that they listed for ‘remove, relocate or contextualize’.
Among them was the Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial and statue of Andrew Jackson.
Critics of the Democrat mayor leapt on the idea that the world-renown landmarks could be removed or relocated.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany immediately dismissed their ‘ludicrous’ findings.
The Christopher Columbus fountain outside Union Station was deemed problematic
The Benjamin Franklin statue, on 12th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, was also listed
‘By publishing a plan that recommends potentially removing the Washington Monument, Christopher Columbus Statue, Andrew Jackson Statue, and Jefferson Memorial – among many other ludicrous recommendations – the radically liberal mayor of Washington, D.C., is repeating the same left-wing narrative used to incite dangerous riots: demolishing our history and destroying our great heritage,’ she said.
‘Our Nation’s capital is rightly filled with countless markers, memorials, and statues to honor and respect the men and women who built this country.
‘President Donald J. Trump believes these places should be preserved, not torn down; respected, not hated; and passed on for generations to come.’
She said that Trump would ensure ‘the mayor’s irresponsible recommendations will go absolutely nowhere’.
‘She ought to be ashamed for even suggesting them for consideration,’ McEnany said.
Interior Secretary David Bernhardt dismissed the suggestions immediately
‘Not on my watch. Never going to happen,’ tweeted David Bernhardt, Secretary of the Interior.
Alyssa Farah, White House communications director, tweeted: ‘I’m not even sure what relocating the Washington Monument would entail.’
And DC political hopeful Will Mascaro, in the running to be an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner, said he celebrated the idea of commemorating a wider variety of people, but was strongly against the removal of the existing nine statues and memorials.
‘Also, where does the Working Group recommend we RELOCATE 81,000 ton Washington Monument to, exactly???’ he said.
‘I can’t believe my tax dollars have been spent commissioning this report.’
Interior Secretary David Bernhardt said he would refuse to remove the nine memorials
White House communications director said the idea of relocating the Monument was ludicrous
Aspiring local politician Will Mascaro laughed off the idea of removing the Monument
In making their decisions, the committee was asked to evaluate 1,330 named places – schools, residential housing, streets, neighborhoods, parks, recreation centers, libraries and monuments.
Of those, 153 were named after ‘persons of concern’.
The committee said it took into account five factors when making a decision whether something should be renamed or taken down: did the honoree participate in slavery, was the honoree involved in systematic racism, did the person support oppression, was the person involved in a supremacist agenda, and did the honoree violate the city’s human rights law.
Demands for a reassessment of DC’s monuments and statues have been growing, and have sharply divided people.
Donald Trump has seized on the discussion as a ‘culture war’, insisting that the debate should not even be held.
Yet even as he introduced fines for toppling statues, Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House, ordered the removal of Confederate statues from within the Capitol.
Across the States protesters have been taking matters into their own hands, with Confederate generals such as Robert E Lee frequently attacked, as well as Christopher Columbus, who ‘discovered’ the Americas for his Spanish patrons but in doing so wiped out a huge swathe of the Native population.
Monuments and memorials removed during the George Floyd protests
There has been a renewed push to remove Confederate monuments following the death of George Floyd in the custody of police.
In May and June 2020, a number of monuments and memorials were destroyed or removed, or commitments to remove them were announced.
Some had been the subject of lengthy, years-long efforts to remove them. Where legal avenues had all but failed, some monuments were deliberately broken.
Many statues of Christopher Columbus were removed, as he participated in abuses against Native Americans and his arrival in the Americas was the beginning of the genocide of Native American people.
Monuments to many other local figures connected with racism were also removed. Some pro-Union or anti-slavery monuments were also targeted, as they were seen to embody disrespectful attitudes towards Native Americans or the enslaved.
At least 63 monuments or plaques in cities across the country have been removed since the protests began.
General Stonewall Jackson and Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Richmond, Virginia
Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney ordered the immediate removal of several confederate statues.
‘These statues, although symbolic, have cast shadows on the dreams of our children of color,’ Stoney said. ‘Let me be clear, removing these monuments is not a solution to the deeply embedded racial injustices in our city and nation, but is a down payment.’
The work began with the statues of General Stonewall Jackson, who became one of the best-known Confederate commanders, and General Robert E. Lee, who was the only president of the Confederate States of America.
People watch as the Stonewall Jackson statue is removed from Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia on July 1, 2020
A statue of Confederate States President Jefferson Davis lies on the street after protesters pulled it down in Richmond, Virginia
John C. Calhoun, Charleston, South Carolina
Crews in Charleston tore down a statue of politician John C. Calhoun, a former Vice President of the United States, from its pedestal in Marion Square on June 24. He is remembered for strongly defending slavery and for advancing the concept of minority states’ rights in politics.
Workers use cherry pickers to help remove the John C. Calhoun statue atop a monument in Marion Square in Charleston, South Carolina in June
The John Breckinridge Castleman monument, Louisville, Kentucky
John Breckinridge Castleman was a Confederate officer and later a United States Army brigadier general as well as a prominent landowner and businessman in Louisville, Kentucky. The statue will eventually make its way to Cave Hill Cemetery, where Castleman is buried.
Jefferson Davis statue from Kentucky Capitol rotunda, Frankfort, Kentucky
The statue had been in the building since 1936. Five years ago, Frankfort officials voted to get rid of the statue, but ended up just removing the bronze plaque that was displayed in the front.
Workers hoist a statue of Jefferson Davis after removing it from the Kentucky state Capitol in Frankfort, Kentucky in early June
Charles Linn, a city founder who was in the Confederate Navy, in Birmingham, Alabama
Linn was a sailor, wholesaler, banker and industrialist. He was a captain in the Confederate Navy and later one of the founders of Birmingham, Alabama.
Robert E. Lee that stood in front of Lee High School in Montgomery, Alabama
Robert Edward Lee was an American Confederate general best known as a commander of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He commanded the Army of Northern Virginia from 1862 until its surrender in 1865.
The Robert E. Lee Statue stands off its base at Lee High School in Montgomery, Alabama, pictured in June 2020. The school has a majority black student population
Edward Carmack, a former US senator, Nashville, Tennessee
Carmack was an attorney, newspaperman and political figure who served as a U.S. Senator from Tennessee from 1901 to 1907. Following his political service, and after an unsuccessful run for Governor of Tennessee, he became editor of the one-year-old Nashville Tennessean.
Protesters toppled the statue of Edward Carmack outside the state Capitol after a peaceful demonstration turned violent at the end of May in Nashville, Tennessee
Confederate Adm. Raphael Semmes , Mobile, Alabama
Raphael Semmes was an officer in the Confederate Navy during the American Civil War. Until then, he had been a serving officer in the US Navy from 1826 to 1860. During the American Civil War, Semmes was captain of the cruiser CSS Alabama, the most successful commerce raider in maritime history, taking 65 prizes.
The pedestal where the statue of Admiral Raphael Semmes stands empty, in Mobile, Alabama. The city of Mobile removed the Confederate statue without making any public announcements
Bronze statue of Confederate soldier named ‘Appomattox’ removed from Old Town Alexandria, Virginia
The Battle of Appomattox Court House, fought in Appomattox County, Virginia, on the morning of April 9, 1865, was one of the last battles of the American Civil War.
George Washington, whose monument towers over DC, owned more than 300 enslaved black people at the time of his death, and, while alive, had those he enslaved whipped when they didn’t work hard enough, or tried to run to freedom,
Washington’s defenders insist he was simply acting as expected for his time; his detractors point out that he owned slaves while a growing number of others around him actively opposed slavery and committed their lives to abolition.
Washington, along with other Founding Fathers and 10 of the first 12 presidents all owned slaves.
Andrew Jackson, beloved by Trump, has had his statues around the U.S. defaced in multiple cities.
Jackson was the seventh president, serving from 1829 to 1837.
In addition to owning enslaved people and co-owning a plantation in Coahoma County, he also oversaw the forced migration of Native Americans in which many died.
In July a direct descendant of Thomas Jefferson called for the Jefferson Memorial to be pulled down and replaced with a statue of Harriet Tubman.
Lucian K. Truscott IV, describes himself in a New York Times op ed as ‘the sixth-generation great-grandson of a slave owner’.
Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, was the third president of the United States, ruling from 1801-9.
Jefferson’s grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph, was Truscott’s great-great-great-great grandfather.
The Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC should be removed, a descendant has argued
Lucian Truscott, right, is a sixth generation grandson of Thomas Jefferson. He is pictured with his cousin Shannon, who descended from Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings
He argued that the domed marble monument to his ancestor, built by Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1939 -1943, was inappropriate given Jefferson owned 600 slaves.
‘It’s a shrine to a man who famously wrote that “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence that founded this nation — and yet never did much to make those words come true,’ Truscott wrote.
‘Described by the National Park Service as “a shrine to freedom,” it is anything but.
‘He should not be honored with a bronze statue 19 feet tall, surrounded by a colonnade of white marble.
‘The time to honor the slave-owning founders of our imperfect union is past.
‘The ground, which should have moved long ago, has at last shifted beneath us.’
His remarks were approved by another of the thousands of Jefferson descendants, Chris Truscott.
‘Me too. And yes,’ he tweeted.
Chris Truscott, another Jefferson descendant, agreed with Lucian Truscott’s view
Lucian Truscott, a 73-year-old journalist and novelist who graduated from West Point before taking up a career as a writer, told how as a child he had played at Jefferson’s Monticello estate, in Charlottesville, Virginia.
He described running around the grounds and enjoying the historic plantation house.
Truscott argued that Monticello served as a more fitting memorial to Jefferson because it contextualized his entire life, slavery included.
‘Monticello is an almost perfect memorial, because it reveals him with his moral failings in full, an imperfect man, a flawed founder,’ he wrote.
The statue of Thomas Jefferson, inside the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC
Jefferson had at least nine children, including six with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings.
Her ‘cavelike’ quarters are on display at the Virginia estate.
Jefferson did not free Hemings. She was permitted to leave Monticello by his daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph not long after Jefferson’s death in 1826, and went to live with her sons Madison and Eston in Charlottesville.
‘My cousins from the Sally Hemings family are also the great-grandchildren of a slave owner,’ he wrote.
‘But the difference is that our great-grandfather owned their great-grandmother. My family owned their family.
‘That is the American history you will not learn when you visit the Jefferson Memorial. But you will learn it when you visit Monticello.’
Truscott concluded that the Jefferson Memorial should be replaced with a statue of Harriet Tubman, who he described as ‘one of our founding mothers’.
‘To see a 19-foot-tall bronze statue of a Black woman, who was a slave and also a patriot, in place of a white man who enslaved hundreds of men and women is not erasing history,’ he wrote.
‘It’s telling the real history of America.’
[ad_2]
Source link
