Historical Figures Reassessed After George Floyd’s Death

The rapidly unfolding movement to pull down Confederate monuments around the U.S. in the wake of George Floyd’s death has extended to statues of slave traders, imperialists, conquerors and explorers around the world, including Christopher Columbus, Cecil Rhodes and Belgium’s King Leopold II.

Protests and, in some cases, acts of vandalism have taken place in several cities in the U.S. and around the world in a re-examination of racial injustices over the centuries.

In San Francisco, a Christopher Columbus statue near Coit Tower was recently defaced — with red paint on the hands and face of the statue.

Near Santa Fe, New Mexico, activists are calling for the removal of a statue of Don Juan de Oñate, a 16th-century Spanish conquistador revered as a Hispanic founding father and reviled for brutality against Native Americans, including an order to cut off the feet of two dozen people. Vandals sawed off the statue’s right foot in the 1990s.

In Bristol, England, demonstrators over the weekend toppled a statue of 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston and threw it in the harbor. City authorities said it will be put in a museum.

Across Belgium, statues of Leopold II have been defaced in half a dozen cities because of the king’s brutal rule over the Congo, where more than a century ago he forced multitudes into slavery to extract rubber, ivory and other resources for his own profit. Experts say he left as many as 10 million dead.

“The Germans would not get it into their head to erect statues of Hitler and cheer them,” said Mireille-Tsheusi Robert, an activist in Congo who wants Leopold statues removed from Belgian cities. “For us, Leopold has committed a genocide.”

In the U.S., Floyd’s killing has led to an increased effort to remove symbols of the Confederacy and slavery.

The Navy, the Marines and NASCAR have embraced bans on the display of the Confederate flag, and statues of rebel heroes across the South have been vandalized or taken down, either by protesters or local authorities.

Taking Matters into Their Own Hands

On Wednesday night, protesters pulled down a century-old statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Richmond, Virginia, the former capital of the Confederacy. The eight-foot bronze figure had already been targeted for removal by city leaders, but the crowd took matters into its own hands. No immediate arrests were made.

It stood a few blocks away from a towering, 61-foot-high equestrian statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee, the most revered of all Confederate leaders. Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam last week ordered its removal, but a judge blocked such action for now.

The spokesman for the Virginia division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, B. Frank Earnest, condemned the toppling of “public works of art” and likened losing the Confederate statues to losing a family member.

Richmond Virginia Mayor Levar Stoney, who has proposed dismantling all Confederate statues in the city, asked protesters not to take matters into their own hands for their own safety. But he indicated the Davis statue is gone for good.

“He never deserved to be up on that pedestal,” Stoney said, calling Davis a “racist and traitor.”

Elsewhere in the South, authorities in Alabama got rid of a massive obelisk in Birmingham and a bronze likeness of a Confederate naval officer in Mobile. In Virginia, a slave auction block was removed in Fredericksburg and protesters in Portsmouth knocked the heads off the statues of four Confederates.

“It’s not a history that we as a nation should necessarily be proud of,” said Portsmouth activist and organizer Rocky Hines. “For us, the history is a lot of history of slavery and hatred. It’s bothered people for a long time.”

Supporters of Confederate monuments have argued that they are important reminders of history; opponents contend they glorify those who went to war against the U.S. to preserve slavery.

Many monuments across the South were erected decades after the Civil War during the Jim Crow era, when states imposed tough new segregation laws, and during the Lost Cause movement, in which historians and others sought to recast the South’s rebellion as a noble undertaking, fought to defend not slavery but states’ rights.

Pelosi Calls for Confederate Statues Removed from U.S. Capitol

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for the removal of statues of Confederate soldiers and officials from the U.S. Capitol.

In an open letter to the Joint Committee on the Library, Pelosi asked Congress to “lead by example” and remove 11 Confederate statues from the Capitol.

“The statues in the Capitol should embody our highest ideals as Americans, expressing who we are and who we aspire to be as a nation. Monuments to men who advocated cruelty and barbarism to achieve such a plainly racist end are a grotesque affront to these ideals. Their statues pay homage to hate, not heritage. They must be removed,” Pelosi wrote in the letter addressed to committee Chair Roy Blunt and Vice Chair Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose).

Pelosi’s letter is the latest high-profile consideration of the Confederacy and its monuments’ visibility in public spaces. President Donald Trump on Wednesday issued a statement marking his ardent refusal to renaming U.S. military bases that are named after Confederate leaders.

In response to Pelosi’s letter, Lofgren expressed her agreement with the House speaker’s request.

“As Vice Chairperson of the Joint Committee on the Library and Chairperson of the House Fine Arts Board, I take very seriously my duty and responsibility to ensure only our more aspirational values are displayed in the United States Capitol. Indeed, what the Confederate statutes in the National Statuary Hall Collection represent is anathema to who we are as a Congress and a country,” Lofgren said in a statement.

“I agree that the Joint Committee and Architect of the Capitol should expediently remove these symbols of cruelty and bigotry from the halls of the Capitol. I stand ready, and call on the Chair of the Joint Committee to swiftly approve the removal of these statues. The Capitol building belongs to the American people and cannot serve as a place of honor for the hatred and racism that tears at the fabric of our nation, the very poison that these statues embody,” said the statement.

Perspectives from Historians

Historians have differing views of the campaigns.

“How far is too far, in scrubbing away a history so that we won’t remember it wrong — or, indeed, have occasion to remember it at all?” asked Mark Summers, a University of Kentucky professor. “I’ve always felt that honor to the past shouldn’t be done by having fewer monuments and memorials, but more.”

Scott Sandage, a historian at Carnegie Mellon University, noted that Americans have a long tradition of arguing over monuments and memorials. He recalled the bitter debate over the now-beloved Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial in Washington when the design was unveiled.

“Removing a memorial doesn’t erase history. It makes new history,” Sandage said. “And that’s always happening, no matter whether statues go up, come down, or not.”

NPR‘s Alana Wise, as well as AP’s Sarah Rankin and David Creary contributed to this report.