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Robert E. Lee

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Statue on blue background

History Was Never Subject to Democratic Control

Elite merchants put up a statue of a British slave trader. A band of protesters toppled it. Who decides what happens now?
by Helen Lewis via The Atlantic on August 9, 2021
Removal of graffitied Stonewall Jackson statue

The Fate of Confederate Monuments Should Be Clear

We know why they were built and why they have to come down.
by Eric Herschthal via The New Republic on August 9, 2021
Tucker Carlson wearing a t-shirt with a photograph of Abraham Lincoln on it.

The Right May Be Giving Up the “Lost Cause,” but What’s Next Could Be Worse

The GOP’s new embrace of Lincoln, emancipation, and Juneteenth is no sign of progress.
by Rebecca Onion, Matthew Karp via Slate on June 25, 2021
A group of formerly enslaved people at a county almshouse, c. 1900.

Juneteenth Is About Freedom

On Juneteenth, we should remember both the struggle against chattel slavery and the struggle for radical freedom during Reconstruction.
by Dale Kretz via Jacobin on June 19, 2021
Ashton Villa in Galveston

Celebrating Juneteenth in Galveston

I had sung the Black National Anthem countless times, but hearing those words reverberate around me in this place, on this day, moved me in a new way.
by Clint Smith via The Paris Review on June 18, 2021
Confederate Monument in Cemetery

Confederate Monuments in Cemeteries, Reminders That We Cannot All Rest In Peace

For people of color in particular, cemeteries can be a cruel reminders of trauma both past and present.
by Sandra Baker via Rad Death Blog on May 3, 2021
A Slavers of New York sticker pasted over a Bergen Street subway sign.

Mapping the History of Slavery in New York

A group of activists is calling attention to the legacy of slavery encoded in the names of New York City’s streets and neighborhoods.
by Ada Reso, Maria Robles, Elsa Eli Waithe, Francesca Johanson via Guernica on April 21, 2021
Robert E. Lee Monument in Richmond, Virginia.

Why Honor Them?

In the decades after the Civil War, Black Americans warned of the dangers of Confederate monuments.
by Karen L. Cox via Lapham’s Quarterly on April 12, 2021
The cover of the textbook, "Heroes of Our America."
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"Heroes of Our America": Reading a "Patriotic" History of the United States

This 1952 textbook serves as an example of the "patriotic history" that Donald Trump grew up with and calls for today.
by Alan J. Singer via HNN on September 27, 2020

Re-watching ‘The Civil War’ During the Breonna Taylor and George Floyd Protests

The landmark Ken Burns documentary hasn’t aged well. But it continues to shape American perceptions about the Confederacy and slavery.
by Gillian Brockell via Retropolis on September 26, 2020
Graffitied Robert E. Lee Statue with child playing basketball.

The New Monuments That America Needs

Every statue defends an idea about history, but what if those ideas are wrong?
by Hua Hsu via The New Yorker on September 15, 2020
A history textbook open to a chapter called "How the Negroes Lived Under Slavery," with an illustration of a wealthy white man shaking the hand of a smiling enslaved African American man whose well-dressed family looks on while white laborers work.

The Lies Our Textbooks Told My Generation of Virginians About Slavery

State leaders went to great lengths to instill their gauzy version of the Lost Cause in young minds.
by Bennett Minton via Washington Post on July 31, 2020
An image of the J. E. B. Stuart statue on Richmond's Monument Avenue being removed, its pedestal covered in graffiti.

All Statues Are Local

The Great Toppling of 2020 and the rebirth of civic imagination.
by Siddhartha Mitter via The Intercept on July 19, 2020
Protests at the Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, with an image of Robert E. Lee edited in the sky behind them.

How Northern Publishers Cashed In on Fundraising for Confederate Monuments

In the years after the Civil War, printmakers in New York and elsewhere abetted the Lost Cause movement by selling images of false idols.
by Harold Holzer via Smithsonian on July 7, 2020
People raising their fists and gathered around the Robert E. Lee Memorial in Richmond, Virginia

Europe in 1989, America in 2020, and the Death of the Lost Cause

A whole vision of history seems to be leaving the stage.
by David W. Blight via The New Yorker on July 1, 2020
Robert E. Lee Memorial covered in graffiti and projections and surrounded by protesters.

The Racism of Confederate Monuments Extends to Voter Suppression

GOP-led state legislatures have not only prevented voters from exercising their rights as citizens, they have usurped local control to remove monuments legally.
by Karen L. Cox via Karen L. Cox Blog on June 30, 2020
Two statues next to each other

Confederates in the Capitol

The National Statuary Collection announced the unification of the former slave economy’s emotional heartland with the heart of national government.
by William Hogeland via Boston Review on June 29, 2020

Juneteenth And National New Beginnings

The holiday is a reminder of the Civil War's larger meaning, the unfulfilled promise of Reconstruction, and the reinforcement of democratic values.
by Tera W. Hunter via Essence on June 19, 2020

Richmond’s Confederate Monuments Were Used to Sell a Segregated Neighborhood

Real-estate developers used the statues to draw white buyers to a neighborhood where houses couldn't be sold “to any person of African descent.”
by Kevin M. Levin via The Atlantic on June 11, 2020

The Original Southerners

American Indians, the Civil War, and Confederate memory.
by Malinda Maynor Lowery via Southern Cultures on November 27, 2019
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