Statues of Confederates Do Not Belong in the U.S. Capitol
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July 1, 2021 - 12:17 am
America’s continual journey to “form a more perfect Union,” is often uneven. As Winston Churchill famously said, “Americans will always do the right thing, only after they have tried everything else.”
We are still sorting out issues of race, particularly as it relates to slavery, the Civil War and Jim Crow. Our progress is self-evident, but the vestiges of generations of separate, but unequal, remain.
Some of those symbols are glaring.
For example, the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall contains statues of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, and Alexander H. Stephens, the vice-president. Georgia donated the Stephens statue in 1927 and Mississippi donated the Davis bronze likeness in 1931.