After 73 removals or renamings of Confederate monuments in 2021, 723 such sculptures remain in the US, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
The findings were announced Tuesday during the group’s press conference on the launch of the third edition of “Whose Heritage?”, a collaborative report with activists across the country that is part of the organization’s efforts. to “eradicate hatred and white supremacy”.
The removals and renamings come as Americans continue to debate whether Confederate monuments belong in public spaces. These statues have been symbols of racism in the United States since the Civil War, say civil rights activists and some historians.
While the 73 removals don’t compare to the previous year’s data, the report’s authors say the grassroots campaigns are steps in the right direction.
“Destroying these monuments and these memorials will not erase the legacy of slavery,” Kimberly Probolus, a researcher at the SPLC, said Tuesday. “But abolishing these memorials is an essential first step in combating the white supremacist values of the Confederacy.”
Following the 2020 murder of George Floyd, the SPLC reported that 157 memorials were removed in the US. A year of heightened awareness of police brutality, nationwide protests and calls for action prompted the most removals of Confederate monuments in a year, according to the organization.
Amy Spitalnick, executive director of Integrity First For America — a non-profit civil rights organization — emphasized that the existence of Confederate statues continues to have dangerous consequences.
“The Confederate imagery continues to serve as a rallying cry for far-right extremists, not just across the country, but now we are seeing it across the world,” Spitalnick said. “In a way… that’s what makes it all the more crucial that we confront this legacy of hate and violence head-on and not allow these symbols to be glorified.”
The SPLC reported that the remaining 723 Confederate monuments are memorials that remain in the US and its territories. This does not include the 741 roads, 201 schools, 51 buildings, 38 parks and 22 holidays in honor of the Confederacy, the group said.
With the remaining Confederate memorials that “we know are still publicly present in the US, there is still a lot of work to be done,” said Lecia Brooks, chief of staff and culture at the SPLC and the SPLC Action Fund.
The struggle to remove the Confederate monuments had been gathering steam before 2020, but racial and political calculus accelerated calls for removals. Many civil rights activists argued that the structures were racist and offensive because they honored leaders who promoted the enslavement of black Americans.
Last year, an imposing statue of General Robert E. Lee was removed in Richmond, Virginia, and added to the growing list of Confederate symbols that have been torn down across the country.
This week, Richmond began the process of removing the pedestals that once guarded the Confederate monuments, which included Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, Jefferson Davis and others, according to the association’s affiliate. CNN WRIC
“We don’t want our future to reflect the honor of people who were leaders within the confederacy,” said Reverend Rhondalyn Randolph, president of a local community at the National Association for the Advancement of People of Color (NAACP) in Kentucky. . Randolph is working to remove a Confederate monument in the city of Owensboro.
Source: CNN Brasil
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