On Tearing Down the Wrong Statues

If there is a bright side to the brutal, senseless killing of George Floyd, it was that more of America woke up to our systemic racism, ill-placed reverence for the Confederate traitors and the blight of hundreds of monuments dedicated to their memory. But I’m sorry we have to deal with the sad, typical over-reaction of some who want to tear down statues of everybody. A few examples are noted below. 

Statue of Hans Christian Heg [1925] 

Wisconsin Capitol, Madison (18 June 2009) 

Hans Christian Heg was the highest-ranking Wisconsin officer killed in the Civil War. He was an ardent abolitionist who led a militia that hunted down slave-catchers. Let’s agree he knew that Black Lives Mattered. He recruited a regiment of fellow Scandinavian settlers to fight for the Union…and the ignorant protesters in Madison tore down his memorial, beheaded the figure and tossed it into Lake Mendota. The best reason I can find for the vandalism was that they wanted the government leaders to be there to hear their demands and they weren’t so, a-rampaging they went. I’m ashamed that citizens in a state I respect more than most have sunk to this level.

Ulysses S. Grant Memorial [1922], Washington, D.C. (29 October 2007) 

This is not the statue in question but 

one in front of our Nation’s Capitol 

Ulysses S. Grant was given a slave once and freed him. Never mind that he was more responsible than Lincoln for defeating the Confederacy and freeing the enslaved. Never mind that he fought the Klan and no president did more for African-Americans until LBJ signed the Civil and Voting Rights Acts. Never mind that it was Black people who led the drive to create the largest mausoleum in America to bury their savior…in Harlem no less. The idiots in San Francisco who tore down his statue did not know what they were doing.

Yes, John McDonogh was a slaveholder. Show me a rich, New Orleanian in the 19th century who wasn’t. Show me another rich New Orleanian who sent some of their slaves to college and donated their estate to the city for the sole purpose of educating poor public-school children. Dozens of schools were named after him. If it weren’t for McDonogh’s bequest, who knows what that racist society would have done to avoid educating Black kids. Two of his busts were torn down and one was tossed into the Mississippi River.

Robert Gould Shaw Memorial [1897], 

Boston, MA (9 October 2009) 

Then there’s the Shaw Memorial in Boston. As soon as the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, Col. Robert Gould Shaw recruited and trained the famous Massachusetts 54th Regiment, the first all-Black unit to join the fight against the rebellion. Shaw died with his men at the Battle for Fort Wagner in South Carolina and they were buried together in a mass grave. The memorial, by August Saint-Gaudens is considered one of the finest public art works in the nation and was vandalized before in 2012, 2015, 2017 and again during the recent protests.

Like the beef directed at the Theodore Roosevelt statue in front of the Museum of Natural History in New York, some object to the white guy on the horse while the people of color are on their feet. Give me a break. Throughout history, there were foot soldiers and officers. This is how they looked. Please stop ignoring important history to make trivialities significant.

Theodore Roosevelt Memorial [1940] 

American Museum of Natural History, 

New York, NY (17 October 2016) 

The Roosevelt statue, with its “hierarchical composition,” is now viewed as a symbol of colonial expansion and racial discrimination. The New York mayor said the statue “explicitly depicts Black and Indigenous people as subjugated and racially inferior” …because the White man is high on his horse and the non-White guys are not. Despite Teddy’s exemplary record as a progressive and conservationist and the fact that the two guides on foot are armed with rifles, the men are on foot and must be viewed as less than the guy on the horse.

Emancipation Memorial [1876] 

Washington, D.C. (17 July 2020) 

So far, they haven’t destroyed the ‘Emancipation Memorial’ in Washington, D.C….yet. I got there recently to find this important monument behind new fencing to prevent vandalism. Also known as the Freedman’s Memorial, it was funded by donations from freed slaves and dedicated on the anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination with one of the most notable speeches Frederick Douglass ever gave. The complaint now is that it shows Lincoln dominantly standing over the kneeling slave and although his shackles are broken, he’s still on his knees. I guess some would prefer the two subjects exchanging high fives.

I’ll admit to cultural insensitivity. That comes with my White upbringing and cluelessness. I’ve tried to explain why I believe directing all this revisionist attention to certain historic figures and some fine public works of art is inappropriate. Our politics have become so polarized, I fear more energies in the future will be spent on issues a reasonable middle would have once thought unimportant.