Why Monuments Must Go

As a Christian, as a soldier that took an oath to “protect and defend the Constitution,” as a man that has stood at Dachau’s charnel ovens, and a vast unmarked grave in Northeast Baghdad watching family members scrabble through mounds of desiccated remains desperately seeking some link to a loved one, I am compelled to speak out concerning those sad monuments to our darker past. It is one thing to soberly view historical items in a museum, learning of our, all to frequent, descents into community madness and an entirely different thing to glorify the perpetrators of the near destruction of our nation and supporters of the shackling of Black people into bondage through large public monuments. Participation in these two intrinsically different events sends two divergent and incompatible messages.

We erect monuments to those men and women that exemplify those noble character traits our culture lifts up; individuals who sacrifice for the betterment of all. Those monuments that glorify leaders of the Confederacy do not point to our better, brighter moments. Instead they remind us of a darker, baser past, one that should cause us to hang our heads in shame. Washington, Jefferson, and others, while not perfect men, point toward a higher place, toward those noble ideals framed in our key and founding documents. While we must not forget those forays into shameful, deviant behavior; we do not want to lift them up as examples to emulate. They should come down from those public spaces they currently occupy. They were erected to remind certain segments of our society to keep their heads down and to remember their place on the bottom rungs of the societal ladder. Relegate such memorials to the past and to those museums dedicated to education and illumination. We must move out of that dark phase of our history into the light.

We remember men and women like Washington, Adams, Roosevelt, Tubman, and others that expended their energies and take risks to forward the cause of human freedom and liberty. They risked all to serve others and deserve public recognition and remembrance. Lee, Hood, and others while men of military prowess, chose to expend their energies, personal fortune, and military skills in a cause determined to savagely curtail liberties for some, to expand the borders of slave territory, and trample the Constitution all while destroying our nation. When faced with a crucial choice they chose poorly. And while they remain a critical portion of our history, they do not deserve adulation and honor. The time has long passed for us to swallow our pride and remove these constant reminders of a dark and failed past.