Where should Confederate monuments go? Cities confronted with what to do with removed Confederate statues are handling the issue differently.
The statues in the Confederate Women’s Monument in Baltimore, Maryland, were removed overnight on Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2017.
(WTOP/Nick Iannelli)
WTOP/Nick Iannelli
Workers remove a monument dedicated to the Confederate Women of Maryland early Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2017, after it was taken down in Baltimore. Local news outlets reported that workers hauled several monuments away, days after a white nationalist rally in Virginia turned deadly.
(Jerry Jackson/The Baltimore Sun via AP)
Jerry Jackson/The Baltimore Sun via AP
The statues in the Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee Monument in Baltimore, Maryland, were removed overnight.
(WTOP/Nick Iannelli)
WTOP/Nick Iannelli
Workers remove a monument dedicated to the Confederate Women of Maryland early Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2017, after it was taken down in Baltimore. Local news outlets reported that workers hauled several monuments away, days after a white nationalist rally in Virginia turned deadly.
(Jerry Jackson/The Baltimore Sun via AP)
Jerry Jackson/The Baltimore Sun via AP
Crews in Baltimore removed Confederate Monuments around the city in the overnight hours of Wednesday morning.
(Courtesy Rebel Lens Baltimore)
Courtesy Rebel Lens Baltimore
A monument dedicated to the Confederate Women of Maryland lies on a flatbed trailer early Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2017, after it was taken down in Baltimore. Local news outlets reported that workers hauled several monuments away early Wednesday, days after a white nationalist rally in Virginia turned deadly.
(Jerry Jackson/The Baltimore Sun via AP)
Jerry Jackson/The Baltimore Sun via AP
The statues in the Confederate Women’s Monument in Baltimore, Maryland, were removed overnight on Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2017.
(WTOP/Nick Iannelli)
WTOP/Nick Iannelli
Workers remove the Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson monument in Wyman Park early Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2017, in Baltimore. Local news outlets reported that workers hauled several monuments away, days after a white nationalist rally in Virginia turned deadly.
(Denise Sanders/The Baltimore Sun via AP)
Denise Sanders/The Baltimore Sun via AP
A bystander takes a picture of the monument dedicated to the Confederate Women of Maryland after it was taken down early Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2017, in Baltimore. Local news outlets reported that workers hauled several monuments away, days after a white nationalist rally in Virginia turned deadly.
(Jerry Jackson/The Baltimore Sun via AP)
Jerry Jackson/The Baltimore Sun via AP
The statue of Roger B. Taney, a Maryland native who served as the chief justice of the Supreme Court, was removed overnight on Friday. It was located on the south entrance of the Maryland State House . FILE.
(WTOP/Kate Ryan)
WTOP/Kate Ryan
A concrete slab remains where a stone and plaque memorializing the resting place of Confederate soldiers from the Civil War was removed at the Confederate Rest section of Forest Hill Cemetery in Madison, Wis., Thursday, Aug. 17, 2017. Madison Mayor Paul Soglin ordered the removal of the monument, as well as another at the site. Soglin said Thursday that the monuments to confederate soldiers are being removed because the Civil War was “a defense of the deplorable practice of slavery.”
(John Hart/Wisconsin State Journal via AP)
John Hart/Wisconsin State Journal via AP
FILE- In this May 17, 2017, file photo, workers in protective gear attach straps to the statue of Confederate general P.G.T. Beauregard as it is prepared for removal from the entrance to City Park in New Orleans. State Rep. Patricia Smith, a black Baton Rouge Democrat, received 105 emails alone, almost all favoring a proposal by her Republican colleague Thomas Carmody that would have erected obstacles to tearing down such monuments.
(AP Photo/Scott Threlkeld, File)
WASHINGTON — When a Confederate statue is removed, some say they should be relocated, not hidden from sight. But there are many ideas about where the most appropriate spot could be.
Cities confronted with what to do with removed Confederate statues are handling the issue differently. After removing four controversial statues, Baltimore’s Mayor Catherine Pugh suggested she’d like to see them moved to cemeteries.
For now, they are being stored until the council votes on what to do next.
“We should not have these anywhere for public display,” said Baltimore City Councilman Brandon Scott. “These monuments are being used as beacons of lightning for vile racism.”
Where do you think is the most appropriate place to relocate removed Confederate statues? #ConfederateStatues
Meanwhile, Virginia’s governor is asking cities in the Commonwealth to relocate Confederate statues to “museums or more appropriate settings,” he said in a statement.
“I don’t think they should be ground into dust and forgotten,” said Jane Levey, chief historian at the D.C. Historic Society.
She believes they could educate future visitors to museums about the country’s past.
“Which is a very different idea than having it out in a public street where people are asked to admire,” Levey added.
Another idea comes from a Charlottesville, Virginia citizens commission.
Grace Elizabeth Hale, professor of U.S. culture and southern history at University of Virginia, likes a suggestion to relocate them to civil war battlefields.
“They suggested one possible answer be moving the Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee statues to Appomattox National [Park] battlefield and I thought that was a brilliant idea,” Hale said.
Hale thinks a battlefield relocation puts the controversial figures in historical context and also creates a space that can be avoided or sought out, depending on the visitor’s interest in their Civil War role.
“People who are neo-Confederates who want to celebrate Lee as a hero will still do that. There’s no way we can stop them from doing that and we’re a country that wants to protect free speech … but the context itself will be presenting those figures as on the wrong side of the political and historical questions of that moment,” Hale said.
