Youre taking that with a little bit different. Whats your position now . Guest well, if i could go back briefly. A few years ago i had the honor of speaking at the getiesburg National Cemetery where the flag behind me is from the anniversary of the getiesburg address. I made a suggest sort of impor tuned people to consider contect liesing confederate monments. Making sure that there were alternative monments. And frankly Nothing Happened in the three subsequent years. Its not an easy thing to make occur. Its expensive, time consuming, requires consensus on text and methodology, and it didnt work. And since that time, other convullsive events have occurred most recently of course the killing of george floyd and the response has been directed at monments among other institutions that are deemed by many to be op pressive particularly confederate monments in the Public Square. And i did write an op ed recently during which i said that i think i was wrong. That weve had enough time, weve had a century for these statues of those who fought the United States of america on behalf of the perpuation of slavery. Weve had five, four years of them being in the Public Square in front of court houses communicating visually the messages of White Supremacy and the time has come to take them down. And that movement did not need me to spur it along. Its been happening bodes spontaneously which is not an easy thing to watch and also officially as mayors and governors take action that many people including me thought would never occur. Host back in 2017 in writing about this topic and you referenced that you wrote things like this. Lets indeed abandon nt thats not good enough now i suppose youre saying. Guest first the opportunity was there to engage historians to write the text. Monument avenue stood in all of its splendid all white glory for three more years. And, frankly, we had discussions at the lincoln forium particularly with the friend of mine of Howard University who described achingly what it was like for a young black woman to grow up in the shadow of monymentsd that suggested powerfuly to her that she was a second class citizen and that the law did not protect her. It protected people who were not people of color. So i think we lost the opportunity if that was going to be possible to add explanatory text, contextualization, context as you put it. There was an effort in richmond that people arent really talking about lately and that is a sculpture there are sefrl. The effort to put a sculpture of arthur ashe at the end of that array of confederate vips was really a bust because the statue in my view is not very good. It was only at the end of monument avenue away from the confederate monments and it aroused so much anger and hostility that it was painful and not worth the effort. Ut the sculpture to him had an eequestrian figure that was going to be placed if it hasnt already right near monument avenue that shows an African American or an african figure with dreadlocks racing through the wind to prevent war. And its an extraordinary piece and it would have been interesting if there was had there been an opportunity for them to be facing each other for a time then i dont think its to be and its really not what its about. Host you spent time at the metropolitan of art. Is there a tug of war between looking at these pieces of art and looking at these pieces as symbols . Guest sure. Im nonnot an eye cono clast at all although its interesting to know there are many pieces at the metropolitan museum that came and left their original sites. Statues of the egyptian female fairo was destroyed by the egyptians who wanted no memory of her and they were excavated. You know, ei dont knows later and sent to the met there are gargoyles that were lopped off the cathedral of noter dam in the reformation that has come to the met. E met is the place that ca scholarly views of now only created and by whom but why, who paid for them. Who desplayed them. What motivated their removals . And again this moment over public art is not new. And for those who have called and say this is unamerican to tear down history, i would remind them that 244 years ago this week during the after the first public reading of the declaration of independence in downtown new york, at the battery, the patriots were so excited to hear about the news that the first thing they did was haul down a big statue of king george 3. They smashed it to bits and used the lead of which it was made to make bullets to fight the revolution. This is not a new phenom in a. And its painful. The russians got rid of their stallance and len yins. Post war germany got rid of its nazi sculptors. It happens, and it happens when reckonings happy. And i think the american happening. I think the american recling of what version of history we promulgated and privilege weve communicated at art is at hand and i think we need to deal with it seriously. Host our guest with us until 9 00 if you want to ask him questions. If you support removing statues that weve talked about, if you oppose it, the numbers are on your screen. I suppose you get asked this a lot. Where does it stop . Guest well, its morphing a bit out of control and these kind of excesses in the summer when people are pent up and tired of being at home and looking for something to do with friends and allys is kind of understandable. But it can have tragic consequences. The des cration of staltus of general grant who did almost as much as lincoln to end slavery in america, winning the civil ar in essence, obtaining the surrender of robert e lee who was protecting the institution of slavery was a tragedy. The same period saw the destruction of a statue of a foreign born Union General named heg who had led wisconsin volunteers into battle for the union. So it can be indiscriminate whether its the Golden Gate Park or i question that new movement to tear down or take down adolph wymans statue of Abraham Lincoln at the university of wisconsin for a variety of reasons, thats failed to tell the entire picture about lincoln as the monumental figure. I think obviously and i hope we deal with during the show. We have the very complicated case of the emancipation memorial in washington, d. C. Dedicated by Frederick Douglas, paid for entirely by free African Americans in pennies and dollars, and dedicated in 176, a copy was made three years later and unveiled in boston. It was considered a triumph of celebrating freedom. But its imagery is offensive to many now and there is a huge debate going on about whether it should remain in public view or whether it should be taken to a museum where it can be context liesed for what it is. Host letting people see that right now, a picture. What do you think should be done . Guest its a tough one. Ive been waxed with pain about it. Its been said that Frederick Douglas made clear his disappointment with lincoln when he dedicated his speech. He actually gave a very complex address and did say that lincoln hoped and he hoped he would live forever. Its complicated because its based i think on two stories. Or one visual and one story. The visual is the symbol of the rising chains in slave. Once the symbol of abolition it always it was introduced in england in the 18th century and usually was accommodated by the caption am i not a man . And im sure thats what he had in mind when he chose that figure to be rising using the legal instrument of lincolns emancipation proclamation. The other episode that is referred to is the visit that Abraham Lincoln made a couple of weeks before his death to richmond, virginia, former capital of the confederacy, where he was greeted by African American workers who in essence were actually liberated by his arrival and by the union armys arrival. And they went to him in a wave and many knelt to him and called him their moses and liberater and he said you must not kneel to me that is not right. You must kneel only to zpwod. All that said, what do we make of it now . We see a kneeling unclad figure. And as my friend and his colleagues established, was a great expert on statry recently discovered, there was a letter that douglas wrote to the newspapers shortly after emancipation in which he regretted the enslaved person was unclothed and kneeling although he did. So what do we make of it . Let me make a comparison thats probably imprecise. If you ever allowed yourself to njoy black faced performers or mince trell singers 50 years ago and thought it was perfectly ok, its not ok. And it should never be shown again because it was degrading and perhaps we werent sensitive enough to understand that. This is kind of the mince trell show of emancipation memorial. It presents an African American as a figure who is being lifted by a great liberater which lincoln tried to do legally but that unclad figure would have to put on a uniform and fight in the army for his own freedom. Thats not what is shown in this memorial. So i would say time to take it from that square even though Frederick Douglas dedicated. Time to replace it with another Lincoln Monument there because it is sacred ground. And a time to put it in the museum and tell the very complicated story of the sculpture that was commissioned by African Americans but designed by white sculpture, introduced by the great African American leader of the 19th century but seems to have outlived its message. Host Harold Holzer joining us, professor at Public Policy institute. First call for you sir is from cleveland, ohio. I ler i was calling because o believe it keeps the pain in our hearts. Wonder why is it that were always, because i feel that 1812 e of the genesis where god told abraham they would be taken to a foreign land to serve them and they will be mistreat bid these people. And to this day they are mistreated by the people. The solidarity forever song keeps it in your heart to be against us. We dont mean harm. We just want peace. And we get attacked by the police. And the statue just shows about we need a master to educate ourselves. We dont. Because before desegregation was put in we had fathers, we were teaching ourselves, we had we contributed to this country so much. The pea nuts. How you got all these fiber optics. A lot and yet were attacked watching foreigners to our inner cities to come and cities with alcohol. Host youve made a lot of points there. Well let the professor comment. Guest well, its painful and deeply moving to hear expressions of pain that perhaps were not taken seriously enough soon enough. And if that pain is given expression in monments to people like Jefferson Davis and robert e. Lee and those wo fought to continue the subgation of people of color, i understand and i agree. But i just dont think Abraham Lincoln falls into that category as a patriarchle was not needed at his time. He was needed. Or the Southern States the slaveholding states would have created their own country which might have enshrined savory for decades to come. We would have been no position to fight International Wars for survival against world war ii. I dont even know if we would exist today either white or black or brown. So lincoln the legal instrument that lincoln crafted to begin the destruction of slavery was crucial. And i think it accomplished the preservation of the union and the end of slavery in america. As the caller was calling from cleveland. Cleveland soldiers and sailors monument in the civil war from which i once spoke has a really extraordinary acskping figure. There is a lincoln there but theres an African American there. The African American is not naked, not in a loin cloth and not in chains. Hes holding a rifle. Nd that is more than a nod but a tribute to the United States colored troops that with lincolns encouragement and legislation and the words of the emancipation were recruited into the army and in fact fought for their own freedom, fought to make the paper of the the paper docket rin of the emancipation into a reality. Host shane, maryland on with our guest. Caller good morning, sir. I find it concerning that right now were seeing the rampant blatant criminal destruction of american eye con graphy, which is supported by very local minority who praise the action of criminals. At best its malicious destruction of property. And it sends the message that its all right to take the law into your own hands if you dont like something. Now, time has taught us that those who fail to learn from the lessons of history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. Destruction begets destruction, violence begets violence. How far will this go . Whats next . The des cration of southern graveyards of the people who voted for president s that may not be popular with some people today . Host well let our guest respond. Guest i share your concern that this is isnt the right way to do it. But when you say people who dont acknowledge history are doomed to repeat it what are we saying with the monumentalization of Jefferson Davis and stone wal jackson and jeb stewart in the former capital of the confederacy . Are we saying these guys existed so lets learn . Are we saying these guys were larger than life, heroic, they were right, the war wasnt about slavery which is part of the lost cause narrative it was all about tariffs and states rights and fighting federal encroachments and invasion. No, it wasnt. It was about slavery and these statues were built to remind people of color that white people have gotten through reconstruction and were back in control. The sculptors were built in richmond from the 1890s to the 1920s when the statement was being made that white premsy would last forever. I agree with you that it is occasionally getting out of hand. The columbus des crations or destructions just last night a columbus statue fell in baltimore. It didnt fall it was toppled and thrown into the water. I think thats painful because theres a much more complicated story to tell about columbus and theres the added complication that columbus regardless of what happened in the new world is a reigning hero for italian americans now. And it is difficult for the italian 34er7b community which has columbus days and columbus clubs and columbus foundations to accept the complication much less the removal of columbus as a symbol. Im speaking from new york where there is a towering in Columbus Circle right in front of the Trump International hotel where the statue of Christopher Columbus on the top. And i dont think thats going to come down any time soon but the situation is not helped when President Trump says in a july fourth columbus discovered america. A, as if it needed to be discovered even though there were indiginous People Living here. And b that it was america. It was the americas but he never set foot in mainland america. So this over simplification has swung the pendulum in a ridiculous fashion to a white centric version of history and now it may have to swing back violently before it centers again. I dont believe statues should be torn down by demonstrators, i dont think i think they should be considered and i like what governor is doing in virginia what the mayor of andrew did in removing jackson and lets remember mayor land rue of new orleans who back in 2017 or 2018 removed new orleans statues of robert e. Lee and beauregard and Jefferson Davis. And a statue which celebrated the liberty placed uprising. And what was that . That was an effort by a white mob to kill a legally elected integrated State Government and reassert dick torl all white control over louisiana. It was a race riot. And why we would have not looked more carefully and acknowledged that was a hideous tribute is a painful part of how we just kind of blythely accepted statry because its pretty and because it makes a nice impact on the citiescape. Its not enough. Its time for reexamination. But i absolutely agree with the caller, not by groups in the dead of night by people who are considering it, communities, elected officials, and in federal parts the federal government. Host because you just said that ill take you back to 2017 again because you talked about the lee statue in richmond. You go on to say but sacrificing ideal is a maul price to pay for preserving good art. Guest didnt i recant that . But thats ok. I have to live with it. Host well in context. Guest one of the problems is the museum of the confederacy in richmond said we dont want it. Its too hard to cleep, those ceilings are too low. When i talk about perspective thats important. Written a book about the sculpture Daniel Chester french who used to work on his sculptors on a hill so that he could run down the hill and look up at the sculptors the way they would look on pedestals. You cant bring these sculptures to eye levels without making them look like cartoons. Thats sort of the genius of these artists. Lee is the nicest i think of the richmond monument avenue statues. Its the earliest, its by a french sculpture. But i dont think it will be destroyed. I think it will be placed somewhere and the Jefferson Davis that was toppled which gain i dont like, spontaneous destructiveness, was a pretty terrible statue and i dont think that would have ended up anywhere, frankly. But again these statues may not be able to survive in the art for arts sake mode because of the repressive attitudes and control that they have come to embody for many more people than i imagined when i wrote ind of demribly in 2017. Host good morning. Caller im sitting here my kids went to winberg high school and lindberg had a secret family and we still have that going on. Ut besides this, these statues are symbols of an oldtime that nobody wants to forget. I get that. Ut just like we just celebrated juneteenth. When the liberation of enslaved americans now americans was kept from them for two years after the emancipation. So you guys are talking about tearing down statues. Well, what about the African People that whole communities, whole nations were torn apart . Their art, culture, civilization was torn apart just to keep these statues. And heres one more thing. Theres a statue of general Nathan Bedford forest in tennessee in memphis just a hop skip and a jump away from me and its truly an ugly statue of an ugly man who has ugly history and ideals. So why are these statues up if theyre not to control . And that statue was dedicated in 1998. Guest thank you, sir. Its a great question. Look, statues can be commissioned by anybody who has got the money and the African American community did not have the money to fund statues in the early days of freedom and civil rights in the 1860s and 70s except for the lincoln emancipation monument to which they directed funds. The there was another forest that was moved from the Public Square and the park that contained it was named for forest, and that name was rescinded. He was an ugly character and he was unfortunately lionized the what he deserved in civil war. Shelby called him one of the great characters of the war. In fact he was a monster who killed African American soldiers after they had surrendered and he was a former slave trader. And after the war he became i think the founding grand wizard if not one of the founders of the ku klux klan. Yes, he is a hideous person and the fact that his statue would be raised in tennessee. But whats even more shocking as you pointed out is that another statue was created in 1998 which is youre right one of the ugliest statues ever created. Its got a grinning demonic face made out of gold, a silver horse. So why its prevailing i understand theres a movement to take it down from its place and replace it with dolly parten. I will not offer a punch line to that. I will just leave that out there. Host george in alexandria, louisiana. Caller i was calling to address the person from arkansas and the lady from norks. The whole ancestors they are back and they are taking down all the statues. Ndrew jackson was one of the most prolific killers. And ber more natives thats who we are. Host what would you like to ask . Ller oh i do want to ask a question. Lets look at benjamin anfield. Guest there are again so many sculptors that can be elected that havent been put up. It costs a lot of money. I hope these can emerge. In the u. S. Capitol statutory hall is kind of a sacred place in america and history not only as an art gallery but it was the original house of representatives chamber, Abraham Lincoln himself served his one term two sessions in that room and now of course its a National Museum of statues. Well, there are still a number of confederates in that collection and by virtue of the way it was created each state can place two people in statry hall. Some people are reacting as if to remove lee and davis and others is a sack lidge. Thats not true. California removed a man named thomas star king who almost no one has heard of. He was a unionist who helped keep california loyal to the federal government during the civil war. But he was removed just because people had forgotten about him and he was replaced with ronald reagan. So it can be done. And its really interesting to know and heartening to know that florida has announced that it is removing one of its staltus and replacing him with mary mccloud the African American pioneering educater Roosevelt Administration official and fighter for civil rights and education. Overdue, about time. A number of African Americans or the absence of African Americans in statutory hall is pretty shameful. Host and we just saw that the House Speaker also announced that four portraits were going to be taken down of people connected to confederate past extends the portraits now at the capitol, too. Guest those like howell cobb who had served as speaker of the house but went on to a leadership role in the confederacy. I think the day of reckoning is here. These are not just southern slaveholders who held office in the United States. That wreckning will be made ultimately but i dont think you can erase their names or their presence from the United States capitol. This country existed in a condition where slavery was legal until 1865 when the 13th amendment was ratified. After lincoln was dead. So that kind of eraysure makes no sense. But some of these people the one that is Speaker Pelosi removed were disloyal to the United States. They were traitors to the United States, to the country that they served. They fought with an enemy government and this longstanding idea that it was a brother against brother war is not really a fair analysis of the american civil war. It was a northsouth war, it was a freedom slavery war. It was a union versus fractured states war. It was a bubble war to preserve slavery at the expense of the country and i think the speaker was right. Host atlanta, georgia. Next. Caller im native american and African American and i think the whole the thing is ridiculous. Because a statue that whats going on in my life. Where does it stop when you just start tearing down everything . Theyre not just talking about tearing down statues of confederacy. Theyre talking about everything. Funny that you mentioneds the black face because all these people calling in from virginia. I dont hear anybody mentioning take down the governor of virginia and alleged kkk outfit. And the Democrat Party is the one who started the kkk. Guest well, theres no question about the political alignments of post war america saw that the Republican Party in its most aggressive aspect was the party of freedom was the party of civil rights and the dixie crat party, the anti northern democrats opposed the civil war party. That was the alignment then. I would suggest that to say that those democrats were the same as these democrats would be a mistake. Most political scientists and journalists and historians agree that that alignment has flipped with the democrats obviously the more progressive and Inclusive Party now and im sorry if this upsets people but the republicans ever since Richard Nixon asserting major control of white southern voters. So to say that the democrats formed the kkk yes democrats did but its not the same democrats as today. So i dont quite get what the viewer is saying about statues but if its native people there are six or seven statues of ative people in statry hall. Sequoia, sack ja way aking ca maim amay a. And African Americans had to be donated by congress because states have not proposed African Americans for statutory hall until mary mccloud. So we have a Martin Luther king, jr. But not in statutory hall. Theres a misalignment that needs to be corrected and evaluated very soon. Host South Carolina. Caller the first thing i would like to say is im an american, im a southerner but im not racist. I believe i think what we need to do is take the statues of all the generals both sides, take them to where these battle grounds are that weve made state take them there and for each soldier that died on each side a blue flag and a gray flag and stagger there them mix them all together. And well see what the legacy of the civil war is truly about. Look out there at those flags and look at those generals and theyre the ones that created those flags. Thank you very much. Guest well, i think the caller raises an interesting point. Many Civil War Battlefields are protected by the National Trust and by the park service. And many do have sculptors of the generals and the common soldiers who fought there even the animals that were there. Getiesberg is one of the most spectacular sculpture gardens in the United States if not the world. And i do worry that theres going to be an attempt to suggest that the statues at the battlefields be reevaluated as well. I dont believe ive been known to change my mind but i do not believe that sculptors of combatants on sight should be altered. Theres a pretty grand statue of robert e lee at geticeburg looking over the field where pickets charge was launched. Where hundreds and thousands of men were sacrificed in kind of a foolish move to attack on the third day of getiesburg july 3rd. I think that should stay. Lee was in command there. General mead should stay. All of the monments should stay. The only ones that i would evaluate at that battlefield are the white supremacist monments like the Alabama Monument that was installed by George Wallace in the 60s. There are those. And theres been some interesting discussion about contextualizing those, putting up markers that say when they were installed and what they were supposed to communicate if its other than commemorating the huge event that took place there. But i would see the removal of the confederates to more neutral spaces not courthouses, not public boulevards. The notion is to find places that would take them and see if that works. If theyre artsically worthy and people who want to support their maintenance. But i think were done with the flags so ill back off on supporting the caller on the idea of putting flags up. Host but theres a debate going on about the renaming of some bases for connections of the confederacy. Guest great hist torque ilitary bases. This is truly bizarre that we have americans military bases that are named for generals like braxton brag, not only inept and disliked but a traiter to the United States army. John bell hood, bening, robert e lee, fort bliss. Simply named because it was zachary taylors son inlaw. Those have to be changed. Thats been going on for too long and that is truly a small concession to make. These names were usually locally chosen by pork barrel congressmen who were able to get federal funds directed in their states to create Revenue Generating military bases. Fort bragg may exist in a vacuum where a place where our soldiers trained back in far back into history in world war ii. But they dont need to be named for enemies of the United States. And i think there are plenty of people for whom to rename these insta lailingses. And the idea that there are political officials who are drawing the line in the sand about these allegedly glorious names is kind of an insult to history. D i think were going to see those soon enough. Theres really no valid argument for keeping them named for confederate leaders. This is not just a southern phenomenon. Theres a port in brooklyn, new york called Fort Hamilton. I know it well. Its where i went for my draft physical in 1968. And when you go to Fort Hamilton you go past stone wal jackson drive on robert e. Lee avenue. Why . Because both men served at forlt hamilton in the years before the civil war. In lees case before the mexican war. Well, i think thats an easy one. There should not be an honor to the robert e. Lee who fought against the United States who fought against his army who fought against his west point education in brooklyn. Anyway, calls have been made to change it but again the army is being a little timid on this. Host from new york. Caller good morning. If we start removing statues in this country of our history then i think we really need to dig deep and basically Everyone Needs to pack up and go back to where their heritage is from and give this land back to the indians but i dont think were going to go there. If we want to remove statues lets find American People who want to buy them or put them in your yard for free. Donate it, ill put it in my yard proudly. All these protesters that are doing all this. I dont feel theyre paying taxes then they have a right to pitch about whats going on in this country because theyre just a burden on the taxpayers. There is a lot of free loaders in this country and most of those people are out there theyre not putting in for. Host well leave it there. Guest thats one of my fellow new yorkers. Were tough. Its too bad we new yorkers hold back on what we really think. A lot of stuff to unpack there. I dont think we should make any conclusions about the tax status of the people who are demonstrating. Weve got a lot of students in there and with an Unemployment Rate of 15 i dont know if we can say anybodys paying taxes. Dont get me started on corporations that dont pay taxes, either. However, i think the backyard solution is great. I dont know if we have enough backyards in new york city to accommodate these statues. But again im going to push back on the idea that we are erasing history. The confederate statues which im holding as a separate category do not tell history. They distort history. They say that the noble white angelo saxen christians of the south were benevolent slave masters they did great deeds for the African People because they kept them in a christianized environment and allowed them into this great new world. Thats bs and that is not history. Thats a simplify kigs, a distortion, and a very hurtful and unfair one that we have taught or accepted in schools for far too long. And if people are upset that the pendulum is swinging too rapidly, sometimes too violently, i agree i recoil in horror when things are done without due process or civic engagement. Its happened in history over and over again. So talking about repeating history. Lashing out against false gods is part of cultural history and were just going to have to get through it and recalibrate what we believe in. Host from new orleans. Della. Im calling in support of taking down all monments, every one of them. Dont he fact that i care if lincoln was a good white man or president all of them should come down. We have black people that have stood for something and we didnt ask to come to the United States of america when we were chained put in boats and brought here. We werent as lucky as the lady from arkansas who combame over on the may flower and she was a free woman. We got here and they put us in slavery. So all of the statues should come down. We shouldnt have any statues. This should be taught in the classroom. And the blight that has built the country they built the white house for wheat people to walk in. Im not angry with the statues. Im angry with the men who put he statues up. Host go ahead. Guest well, this is the voices that we have not heard for too long, the pain that some of these statues cause is genuine, sincere, and deep. And i think tolerance of monumentalizing White Supremacists and those who apologize for and ask people to die to keep people enslaved is a very real emotion and a very real accounting that were going to have to do. I am going to say that were never going to remove all statues from all Public Squares and i will advocate to the rest of my days for abraham incolns place as a monumental figure, the Lincoln Memorial in washington is not only gorgeous, not only one of the most magnificent sites in the world. Lets remember what a great statue can become. When it was dedicated in many years ago, 80 years ago, it was not only a segregated event but people of color who admired lincoln who came early were forcibly removed from front row seats so that confederate veterans can take their place. And that was the message of the Lincoln Memorial for decades that it was a place to represent sectional reconciliation and not racial reconciliation. Eleanor proud that roosevelt first lady of the United States in whose new york city home i work when we dont have social isolation at the roosevelt house Public Policy institute of Hunter College arranged for Marion Anderson the great African American opera star to sing at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939 after she had been barred from the allwhite daughters of the american revolution. And its famous constitution hall. She sang on Easter Sunday 75,000 people came and then the message of the Lincoln Memorial the image of the Lincoln Memorial changed. After that it became the site for naacp meetings and the Truman Administration and forever transformed in 1963 when dr. King stood there and said he stands in the shadow of the man who wrote the emancipation proclamation to express his dream for a better world. So statue ks have meaning and they can inspire. They dont all have to come down with respect i say to the caller from louisiana. We have to be selective and we have to understand how powerful the impact of public monments are. Host so something a little bit in the modern day. Princeton University Professor deciding to remove the name woodrow wilson. What do you think might happen with the former president as far as where he stays or goes concerning his name . Guest well, Woodrow Wilsons certainly undergoing a reexamination. Im going to be looking at his relation to the black press in my forth coming book and he was pretty bad on African American rights. He was born in virginia, he grew up in columbia, South Carolina where sherman had conquered the town. He was a racist no question about it. He resegregated the federal bureaucracy. Was a big fan of birth of a nation, a racist view of history. He went to school with thomas dixon who wrote the book the clansman on which it was based. And i will sad that he was pretty indifferent about the influenza pandemic that hit the nation. He was focused on world war one. On the other hand, he tried to create the first version of the United Nations and failed. He was a progressive in terms of business and labor relations. He was a genuine reformer. And he was probably the best friend up until that time that Jewish Americans had in the white house. He appointed the First Jewish Supreme Court justice. So its a mixed bag. But in celebrating him we have to recognize his shortcomings. And although he was generally successful president on National Issues he was a disaster in terms of turning the clock back on black rights. So all such president s are going to be subjected to a reexamination. I think we should do them maturely and remember that everyone is in a way complicit. This is not just southerners who ran away with public memory. I would say that lets keep in mind that the lee statue and the jackson statue in richmond were both funded by selling engravings of those generals. They were sold for 10 as a subscription to the statue construction. But where were those engravings made . They were made in new york. A lot of the confederate monuments, the cookie cutter soldiers toting rifles that you see all over the south and indeed the same in the north were made in connecticut. This is a national atflimflicks that requires us to take a hard look at the eraysure of history, the white washing of history, pun intended, and the distortion of history. Host from new hampshire, karen. Caller thank you. I was calling to ask what the gentleman thinks about the fact that considering the black sbatsdzmor recognition here in the country, what was thought about the fact that they were burned an American Flag while peeing on it of one of the statues and when they talk about saying that children need to learn about it in school well history really isnt even taught. But if that was the case would they want everything that pertains to the people they dont like pictures of them taken out of the school books, too . Guest well, individual acts of outrage occur every day whether its someone behaving stupidly with an American Flag or i would say much worse someone holding his knee on someones neck for eightandahalf minutes. I couldnt help noticing that was not in the litany of unamerican activities. That to me is more unamerican than doing something silly with the flag. Its human life, its disrespect. What about the thousands of lynchings of African Americans in the south that were not taught in schools and for which monments are just now being raised. Lets leave out the extreme reactions here. The ku klux klan actually demonstrated in getiesburg on the battlefield on the anniversary of the battle this weekend. Should we say that theres a rising of the clan or just a bunch of nuts who are making their presence obnoxiously felt on the sacred ground where the north turned back the confederacy . If one person who is misbehaving does not really represent an entire movement of generally very remarkably Peaceful Demonstrations that have occurred with plaque and white people hand in hand even though we shouldnt be hand in hand even though we shouldnt be hand in hand, we should be distanced. Any analysis with that calls these people outlaws, or unamerican, or radical antifa. It is just a big movement and it is a movement that is responding to injustice. It is not just black people wanting more, its people of color wanting what has been denied for too long. Justice. That is what statuaries should represent. America on this weekend should represent. Host one more call from tom in hagerstown, maryland. Caller there was a recent New York Times editorial oped by Karen Randall williams. Was, which essentially meant that most black people in the United States today can trace their dna back to white slave owners that either had sex with the female slaves either willingly or by rape. And father children. And then they told their children nothing could be worse than that. Their own children and sell them into slavery, probably 85 to 90 percent of black people in the United States today have dna that can be traced back to white slave owners. Host because we are running out of time, what would you like our guest to address . Go ahead. I apologize. Was it is a powerful reality. Of history andk ned gordon reed, finally approving a preponderance of that onel research such slaveowner was Thomas Jefferson who fathered children with his slave, sally hemmings. Continued ton serve him. Hypocrisy it is more than hypocrisy, it is rape. It is part of the history and the dna of the United States. Some of this is not addressed in books. It is veiled by statues. The documentated we are celebrating today as an expression of hope and , that everyone has since enshrined and embrace. But jefferson didnt believe that all men were created equal, as we know. Fortunately his words spoke louder than his attitudes. Remained wes can all agree on this Independence Day weekend, the expression of the great possibility that this country is supposed to be is still. The only country that was founded on an idea not on race, ash nationality or ethnicity. It was founded on an idea. If we have not yet created a perfect union, i think we have created a more perfect union. We should escape from the shadows of statues that say otherwise and continue moving forward. Host Harold Holzer is the Public Policy introduced institute director, and a lincoln form chair. Thanks for coming ba announcer she spends washington journal. Every day we are taking your calls on news of the day to help discuss policy issues that impact you. Coming up monday morning, director of the George Mason University center for vanity project will discuss how the coronavirus pandemic is impacting cities. Alzheimersof the association will discuss how covid19 is affecting Nursing Homes and alzheimers patients. Watch cspans washington journal live at 7 00 eastern monday morning. And join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, text messages, and tweets. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] announcer next, physician and pulitzer prizewinning author Siddhartha Mukherjee talks about the u. S. Response to the coronavirus pandemic, and the medical science that is being used to combat it. At not 00, prime ministers questions from the ridge house of commons with boris johnson. After that, from todays washington journal, lincoln scholar and author discusses the National Debate over removing confederate symbols and monuments. All of the decades that i have been involved in chasing Infectious Diseases, i have never seen anything that is so protean to theres no other Infectious Disease that goes from 40 of the people having no symptoms, to some having mild symptoms, to some having
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