Baltimore removes 4 statues over night

[GMDino]

(08-16-2017, 10:56 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: As someone put it, can't remember who, maybe it is a better idea to have these memories in museums than on pedestals.

This is especially true for a log of them, which are fantastic works of art. For example, the ones in Charlottesville are well known examples of the particular artist that did them.

I agree.  In a museum you can study the whole story not just glorify one person.

Even Lee didn't want statues.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/robert-e-lee-opposed-confederate-monuments/

Quote:But Lee himself never wanted such monuments built.


“I think it wiser,” the retired military leader wrote about a proposed Gettysburg memorial in 1869, “…not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered.”

WATCH:The shifting history of Confederate monuments

Lee died in 1870, just five years after the Civil War ended, contributing to his rise as a romantic symbol of the “lost cause” for some white southerners.

But while he was alive, Lee stressed his belief that the country should move past the war. He swore allegiance to the Union and publicly decried southern separatism, whether militant or symbolic.

“It’s often forgotten that Lee himself, after the Civil War, opposed monuments, specifically Confederate war monuments.”

“It’s often forgotten that Lee himself, after the Civil War, opposed monuments, specifically Confederate war monuments,” said Jonathan Horn, the author of the Lee biography, “The Man Who Would Not Be Washington.”

In his writings, Lee cited multiple reasons for opposing such monuments, questioning the cost of a potential Stonewall Jackson monument, for example. But underlying it all was one rationale: That the war had ended, and the South needed to move on and avoid more upheaval.

“As regards the erection of such a monument as is contemplated,” Lee wrote of an 1866 proposal, “my conviction is, that however grateful it would be to the feelings of the South, the attempt in the present condition of the Country, would have the effect of retarding, instead of accelerating its accomplishment; [and] of continuing, if not adding to, the difficulties under which the Southern people labour.”

The retired Confederate leader, a West Point graduate, was influenced by his knowledge of history.

“Lee believed countries that erased visible signs of civil war recovered from conflicts quicker,” Horn said. “He was worried that by keeping these symbols alive, it would keep the divisions alive.”