“Some people call it vandalism, I call it art”, a young black man says as a sixty foot bronze equestrian statue towers over him. The smell of aerosol diffuses in the air as another protester steps up to paint their truth on the soldier, surrounded by pictures of black faces that no longer walk this planet.
Scattered across the country, one thousand seven hundred and forty-one confederate symbols remaining in the United States of America. To many this number exceeds the expectations of people who live in a society that shuns slavery.
In the light of the death of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and many black brothers and sisters, many people took to the streets to protest systemic racism within the government and police force. As an act of symbolic activism many protesters called for the removal of confederate statues that instills a continual reminder of white supremacy, racism, and fear into the public. Some government officials responded with support, while others in retaliation to the vandalization.
These times of truth telling raises the question of why so many confederate monuments stand, what do they truly embody and how do they shape time and space.
The performance of history through Confederate monuments and statues serve to display an idealized idea of the “Southern Way of Life” that perpetuates white supremacist ideologies yet are still held in place through Federal, State, and local preservation laws.
One hundred and fifty five years after the Civil War, in a country where people continue to sacrifice their lives for freedom and equality of Black and Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC), monuments of Confederate soldiers who fought for slavery continue to be protected.
Between 1889 and 1920 roughly, there was a boom in Confederate statue erection. This was due to many different factors. Originally, these monuments were built in remembrance of the lives that were lost. They also helped to serve white southerners a sense of pride in their heritage and families that championed slavery instead of guilt.
-- General Robert E. Lee Statue in Richmond, Va. on June 23. Getty Images
The erection of these monuments during the Jim Crow Era was a way to reinforce segregation and white supremacy. It drove home the message that the races were in fact not equal. Lastly, the monument boom was partly due to capitalism through the growing monument industry.
"The Boys Who Wore Gray"
However, it became prominent there was a shift in the monument movement from the mourning of lost ones to commemorating lone soldiers. Examples include statues of Robert E. Lee or The Boys Who Wore Gray who’s monuments stood as a remembrance of history. Although, it is unsurprising that there are very few statues of confederate generals who worked with the government during Reconstruction.
-- August 14, 2017. Virginia Bridges. HERALD SUN
Many factors and justifications led to the desire for Confederate remembrance and honor after the tragic loss. One theory discussed by Jess R. Phelps and Jessica Owley in their article “Etched in Stone: Historic Preservation Law and Confederate Monument” includes the Lost Cause theory.
The foundation of this theory is the notion that the Civil War was “a noble struggle to preserve states’ rights and ‘Southern Way of Life’”.
This idea disregards that the “Southern Way of Life” in a societal and economic sense was heavily based on slavery, consequently diluting the faults of the time.
-- Historian Edward Pollard's 1866 book Lost Cause: A New Southern History of the War of the Confederates.
four main points of this theory:
- South fought honorably
- Not defeated but overwhelmed by northern economic prowess and population
- Preservation of state rights, not slavery, was the cause of the war
- Secession was constitutional
All of these factors cumulatively work to normalize the Lost Cause view and memorialize themselves in the monuments standing today.
-- Curtis Lee in front of the Jefferson Davis Memorial in Richmond, Virginia on June 3, 1907 reviewing Confederate Reunion Parade
Monuments and statues serve as a way to perform history. They stand mighty and tall, drawing attention and calling for the eyes of the public as their audience, and their pedestal as their stage. Monuments, memorials, and statues themselves are seen by the public as something or someone important enough to be remembered.
They configure space and time by allowing the public to be immersed in the past, and the nature of their grandness calls for respect, not questioning. As described earlier, these confederate monuments were a way to express pride in this “Lost Cause” theory and “Southern Way of Life”. They are erected through the lens of the sculptor or the financier, not necessarily to draw history in its raw form.
In many ways they are used to alter history, covering up exploitation and suffering, to give a false sense of pride. At a Confederate memorial unveiling in Fayetteville, Arkansas, one woman said,
“These monuments we build will speak their message to generations. These voiceless marbles in their majesty will stand as vindicators of the Confederate soldier. They will lift from these brave men the opprobrium of rebels, and stand them in the line of patriots. This is not alone a labor of love, it is a work of duty as well. We are correcting history.”
History itself is past-tense and permanent, there is no way to alter or change true history. The utterances of this woman clearly show that these marble structures are erected to provide a history that the public would rather see to avoid embarrassment and guilt, instead of the history that needs to be seen to move forward. For many, it instills fear, as many of the groups responsible for these monuments often have close ties with the Klu Klux Klan. They are a sign of white supremacy and racism, glorifying the people who fought for the shackling of black beings for economic benefit. For those who are no stranger to the evils of the past, these structures perform for the public the racism society still tolerates and some even sit in front of courthouses where colored folk become shackled, once again.
LEGAL BARRICADES
Although many government officials respond to the symbolic activism of protesters with dismay and recommend legal forms of removal, there are many laws in place to protect monuments from removal or alterations.
NHPA allows for the opportunity for negotiated solutions through multiple consultations that depend on how federal funds will be used and how the government will avoid adverse effects. The process of multiple consultations is time-consuming, costly, and controversial which in of itself discourages the removal of these monuments.
NEPA serves to protect “cultural resources” which is a category that includes monuments and statues.
VARA takes an artistic approach in which the artist of the memorial is also given moral rights to the works of art they create. Trickling down to the state and local levels, many governments have laws and provisions that not only mimic these three acts but also expand upon them. This multilayered protection of monuments makes it nearly impossible and very costly for citizens to call for the removal of Confederate statues.
Trickling down to the state and local levels, many governments have laws and provisions that not only mimic these three acts but also expand upon them. This multilayered protection of monuments makes it nearly impossible and very costly for citizens to call for the removal of Confederate statues.
In October of 2020, a Virginia judge ruled that the statue can be removed under governor’s orders after finding that it was “raised against a backdrop of white supremacy and that it is against public policy to keep it up”, states Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring. Although this decision is still awaiting appeal, this ruling is a large step towards the removal of this controversial structure.
Often protests and movements such as the Black Lives Matters movement are always faced with critiques about the “right way” to protest. I would argue that there is no correct way to protest, simply stated in the definition of civil disobedience itself.It is meant to catch the attention of the people, to inconvenience them, to demand to be heard from a crowd that has silenced them.
In North Carolina, the confederate statue named “The Boys Who Wore The Gray”, commemorating Durham County Confederate soldiers was toppled by protesters in 2017. After this nationwide demonstration, the Governor tweeted,
“The racism and deadly violence in Charlottesville is unacceptable but there is a better way to remove these monuments.”
After further analysis of the legal barriers stated earlier that make it nearly impossible for these statues to be removed in a “better way”, it raises the notion that to fight for justice in a system that stands for obedience based on legality not morality, it is necessary for one to step outside the lines of the law to enact change within it.
Although many would offer the critique that these demonstrations are wreaking havoc and damage to public spaces, they are simply unveiling the chaos that BIPOC experience that goes unnoticed, unreported, and tolerated.
Many groups have also responded with ways communities can democratize their selection of new monuments that have an inclusive conversation and selection process. One suggestion was to erect a memorial to MOVE, the Philadelphia-based Black liberation group that was bombed in 1985 by the Philadelphia Police Department which resulted in the loss of many of its members.
Others have also suggested the memorialization of the those who lost their lives to lynching, slaves, memorials of Black heroes, and Black soldiers that fought for their own freedom in the Civil War. These structures would represent the people that faced the ugly past these Confederate monuments tried so tirelessly to conceal.
-- A memorial wall with the names of people who were enslaved on the Whitney Plantation in Wallace, La., photographed on Jan. 13, 2015. Edmund Fountain—Reuters
On June 26th of 2020, President Trump signed an executive order...
A statement that seems somewhat ironic. The performed history within these structures produce continued ignorance of real national history through the minimizing or omission of the deep-rooted systemic racism that was put into place in the past that continues to appear in the present. It is not history that is destroyed but the falsified glory that is being called into question. Protesters are demanding a history that is not erased but is displayed at face value, to not shy away from historical faults, and allowing those who fought for equality, equity, and freedom to be the ones deserving of being set in stone.
President Trump condemned government officials that have shown their support, stating
“It is a policy of the United States, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to withhold Federal support from State and local law enforcement agencies that have failed to protect public monuments, memorials, and statues from destruction or vandalism”.
This raises the question, why is the leader of this free nation fighting harder for the protection of material objects that represent racism and white supremacy, to the extent of withholding financial support and arrest, than for the human rights and lives of black citizens who have died at the hands of police officers? Yet, still failing to condemn white supremacy.
These monuments and statues perform the history he and many other Americans would rather believe in and are physical representations of the separation between white and colored folk. He prioritizes the law that is motivated by obedience, not morality, and maintaining the quiet, not the peace. When faced with blatant racism and disregard for colored lives, it is not just a desire but the duty of the American people to fight for the rights that have been infringed upon as stated in the Constitution.
