The removal of statues is occurring across the United States on a fairly regular basis. Most recently, this past Saturday, June 10, 2023, the statue of Revolutionary War hero General Philip Schuyler was removed from outside City Hall in Albany, NY. The reason? Schuyler had been a slave owner…
WHO is next? George Washington? He too was a slave owner. Concern about the removal of statues in 2017 made me start writing daily about statues and our history. It’s important to think about what the removal of statues means. We must preserve our history so we, and future generations can learn from it. Erasing history is not a good solution. Knowledge about our history is!
“Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.” That quote from George Orwell’s 1984 must serve as a reminder. So much has changed so quickly in the last few years. In many ways, our country is becoming unrecognizable.
I am sharing these words that I wrote in 2017 to remind us that “We the People” must preserve our history and understand that freedom is not passed through the bloodstream to the next generations. As Ronald Reagan once said, “Freedom is not something to be secured in any one moment of time. We must struggle to preserve it every day.”
My words from 2017…
Always the one reading the plaques at museums, and frustrating my companions who are on a mission to complete the expedition rather than soak in every detail about fewer exhibits, I am concerned about the recent attack on statues.
How can we learn our history if we remove items that are meant to stand through time and remind us of our past? Yes, the past includes good and evil. A weapon to combat evil is knowledge. If we erase that knowledge, we make ourselves weaker.
Back in January, before statues became so controversial I began researching and writing about statues that had stirred my curiosity. It was a project I had thought about for years. When I visited Washington D.C. about a decade ago I came across so many statues that I wanted to know more about. I wondered who and what had inspired the subjects chiseled from marble, cast in bronze, or created from some other material.
There are two statues representing each state in National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol. When I first learned about this statue collection, I was curious. Most of the subjects of these statues I knew little or nothing about. I wanted to know more about who inspired the statue. Why should we remember these individuals and their accomplishments? I decided to start a series of posts in a blog series and share what I discovered. I hoped to spark curiosity in others, which would lead to a greater knowledge of our history.
Lately, it seems statues have become a topic to stay away from. Mention statues and images of angry groups aiming to destroy them are conjured. The first to come under assault were statues representing the Confederacy. However, the attacks quickly moved to targets that represented the opposite of what was offensive to the assailants.
A victim of the misplaced outrage was a statue in Atlanta. Self-proclaimed justice warriors, dressed in black, under the cover of darkness with their faces masked, sprayed the object of their contempt that stood in Piedmont Park in August.
They attempted to tear it down using a chain, but luckily knowledge and reason prevailed. An Atlanta police official stood in front of the monument and demanded the chain be released. He explained that not only was it against the law to destroy and deface the statue, but the statue was in fact a monument that symbolized the reconciliation between the North and South after the Civil War. The Peace Monument features an angel standing above a Confederate soldier, urging him to lay down his weapon. The angel held an olive branch…sadly, it was broken during the raid.
Just a few weeks ago, a statue of Francis Scott Key, author of the poem “The Defense of Fort McHenry” written during the War of 1812 that would later become our national anthem, was a target of rage. “Racist Anthem” was spray painted by the vandals, and red paint was splashed on the monument. The statue of Thomas Jefferson at the University of Virginia, which Jefferson founded, was covered with a black shroud.
When will this “purging” stop? If we do not halt it now, I believe we are in danger of losing much of our history. Already there are efforts underway to remove Columbus Day. Los Angeles just changed “Columbus Day”, to “Indigenous Peoples’ Day”. Why not have both?
Christopher Columbus was by no means a saint. But, if only saints are deserving of statues, there will be few allowed to remain. By the way, even saints are not safe from the “statue police.”
Recently a statue of Junipero Serra at the Old Santa Barbara Mission was beheaded and doused in red paint. Father Serra had established nine California missions, among them San Francisco and San Diego. Pope Francis canonized Junipero Serra in 2015. However, the sainthood for Junipero did not come without controversy. While some were overjoyed at the declaration of sainthood for the Spanish missionary, others felt Junipero had been part of Spanish imperialism and was not worthy of sainthood.
Freedom is the right to disagree with each other. We must remember that more speech is indicative of a free society, not less speech. Free speech does not mean only speech we agree with. The speech that the majority disagrees with, is the speech that it is essential to protect.
The freedom to erect history and not partake in the removal of statues is part of freedom of speech. Speech we do not like, is not violence, as many who wish to limit certain speech claim. Speech is not violence. Speech is actually a shield against tyranny.
I say, “More Statues and More Speech Shield Us From Tyranny.”
