Teachable monuments?
A week after Charlottesville, Va., broke out in street battles over city plans to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee, the Confederacy鈥檚 iconic general is under siege on multiple fronts.聽
Duke University聽on Saturday聽removed a vandalized statue of Lee from the entrance to its chapel. The same is happening in Texas. And Maryland lawmakers want to retire Lee鈥檚 statue from Antietam, site of the greatest one-day loss of life on a battlefield in United States history.
The context for some of these statues is well known. Of the estimated 1,700 statues and artifacts honoring Confederate leaders across the country, most are in the South and weren鈥檛 erected until the Jim Crow era 鈥� when black civil rights were being severely restricted.
Yet that is not the full story. Across the rest of the country, private groups such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy lobbied for and often funded monuments to Confederates, citing the need for reconciliation between North and South.
The windows honoring Lee and Gen. Stonewall Jackson in the National Cathedral in Washington 鈥� installed in 1953 at the urging of the United Daughters of the Confederacy 鈥� were seen as just that, an attempt to unify North and South.
In today鈥檚 climate, they are now seen as toxic.
Duke鈥檚 statue of Lee was vandalized four days after Charlottesville.聽Three days later, it was on the way out. Meanwhile, the University of Texas at Austin announced聽on Monday聽that it was moving 鈥渟everely compromised鈥� statues of Lee and three other Confederate figures from a main area of campus immediately. 鈥淓rected during the period of Jim Crow laws and segregation, the statues represent the subjugation of African Americans. That remains true today for white supremacists who use them to symbolize hatred and bigotry,鈥� wrote President Greg Fenves.
Yet even as the country struggles to decide the future of its Confederate statues, there are signs that the higher motive 鈥� to promote understanding and healing 鈥� remains.
Authorities at the National Cathedral aim to use the windows of Lee and Jackson as part of a larger discussion about race in America.
Duke will preserve its Lee statue 鈥渟o that students can study Duke鈥檚 complex past and take part in a more inclusive future,鈥� said university President Vincent Price in a letter to students, faculty, and alumni. The removal, he said, 鈥減resents an opportunity for us to learn and heal.鈥�
At Antietam National Battlefield, the issue is whether the Lee statue gives visitors false information about Lee鈥檚 life and views. In 2003, businessman William Chaney bought land adjoining the battlefield and erected the monument, including a plaque that claims that Lee was personally 鈥渁gainst secession and slavery鈥� but fought for the South out of a sense of duty to his home.聽Historians differ on the claim, but unlike many Southerners of his generation, Lee accepted defeat. He urged, even embraced, reconciliation.聽He personally opposed Confederate monuments. And in 1856, he wrote in a letter to his wife: 鈥淪lavery as an institution is a moral & political evil in any Country鈥� 鈥� though he never spoke publicly about it.
In Lee, America has found a man who points to the聽difficulty of distilling any argument over memorials and reconciliation to oversimplified answers.听听
