# data[].attributes.body
C- Aug 21,2018
R- The article gives a list of removed statues and why they were removed.
A- Fox News
A- No emotion, however no credited sources.
P- To inform about which statues were removed.

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More than 30 cities across the United States have removed or relocated Confederate statues and monuments amid an intense nationwide debate about race and history.

After a "Unite the Right" rally in Virginia in August to protest against the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee resulted in the death of a woman who was demonstrating against white supremacy, other cities have decided to remove Confederate statues.

Many of the controversial monuments were dedicated in the early twentieth century or during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. Discussions are under way about the removal of monuments in Houston, Atlanta, Nashville, Pensacola, Florida, Jacksonville, Florida, Richmond, Virginia, Birmingham, Alabama, and Charlottesville, Virginia.

Here is a running list of all the monuments and statues that have been removed and the cities that have taken them down:
Annapolis, Md.
Under cover of darkness, city workers removed a statue in August 2017 of former Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney that had been on the State House's front lawn for 145 years. Taney authored the Supreme Court's 1857 Dred Scott decision, which held that African-Americans could not be U.S. citizens. The city's Republican mayor said through a spokesman that it was removed "as a matter of public safety."
Austin, Texas
The statues of four people with ties to the Confederacy - Robert E. Lee, Albert Sidney Johnson, John H. Reagan and former Texas Gov. James Stephen Hogg - were removed from pedestals on the University of Texas campus on Aug. 17, 2017. UT's president said in a written statement the deadly clashes in Charlottesville made it clear "Confederate monuments have become symbols of modern white supremacy and neo-Nazism." Separately, a 1,200-pound bronze statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis that was removed from UT's campus in 2015 has now returned to the campus, at the Briscoe Center for American History.

The Austin school board voted to strip Confederate names from five district schools, though they haven't been renamed yet. The board had previously renamed Robert E. Lee Elementary School in 2016.

The Austin City Council approved renaming Robert E. Lee Road and Jeff Davis Avenue.
Baltimore, Md.
Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh told reporters she wanted to move "quickly and quietly" to take down four Confederate statues or monuments - statues of Lee and Thomas, J. "Stonewall" Jackson and monuments for Confederate Soldiers and Sailors and Confederate Women - from the city's public spaces. Although the plan had been in the works since June 2017, the Baltimore City Council approved it only two days after the deadly events in Charlottesville. On March 10, 2018, the space where the Confederate statues had stood was rededicated to abolitionist and civil rights pioneer Harriet Tubman.
Bradenton, Fla.
Mantee County removed a Confederate soldiers memorial obelisk on Aug. 24 after the city commission voted 4-3 to take it down and place it in storage. The monument, which had stood there for more than 90 years, was accidentally broken into two pieces when city workers removed it. The removal came after days of protests from residents and activists, most of whom were in favor of taking it down, and it cost $12,700 to remove.
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Plaques honoring Lee were removed from an episcopal church's property on Aug. 16, 2017 and the governor called on the Army to remove the names of Lee and another Confederate general from the streets around a nearby fort. "It was very easy for us to say, 'OK, we'll take the plaques down,'" said Bishop Lawrence Provenzano, of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island, who called them "offensive to the community." New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has called for a review of all the city's public art to identify "symbols of hate" for possible removal.
Dallas, Texas
A bronze statue of Robert E. Lee, formally called the Robert Edward Lee Sculpture, was removed in mid-September 2017 from Robert E. Lee Park, which was also named in honor of the Confederate general. The Dallas City Council voted 13-1 to remove the statue, which has stood in Lee Park for 81 years.

The park was dedicated to Lee by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1936 during a renaming ceremony of the park.
Daytona Beach, Fla.
Three Confederate monuments were removed from a city park Friday morning. A city spokesperson said the plaques were going to be cleaned up and taken to a nearby museum. The decision to remove them did not require public input, the spokes-person told FOX35, because they were donated and not purchased with taxpayer funds.
Chapel Hill, N.C.
Protesters toppled the "Silent Sam" statue that has stood on the University of North Carolina's Chapel Hill campus since 1913 on Aug. 20. More than 200 people had gathered and were chanting "hey, hey, ho, ho, this racist statue has got to go." In a statement, UNC Chancellor Carol Folt called the act "unlawful and dangerous," adding that law enforcement were investigating the incident. The statue had been a source of controversy, with school officials claiming that state law prevented them from removing it.

Durham, N.C.
A nearly-century old statue of a Confederate soldier was toppled not long after Charlottesville by protesters associated with the Workers World party. North Carolina Central University student Takiyah Thompson, along with three others, were arrested and charged with felonies in the days following. As the bronze statue lay crumpled on the ground, protesters could be seen kicking it on social media. A Worthington assistant city manager said the community seeks to be one that "promotes tolerance, respect and inclusion."

A statute of Lee was removed from the entrance to Duke University Chapel on Aug. 19, 2017 and is set to be preserved in some way to study the university's "complex past."

"I took this course of action to protect Duke Chapel, to ensure the vital safety of students and community members who worship there, and above all to express the deep and abiding values of our university," university President Vincent Price wrote in statement to the school.
Franklin, Ohio
A monument to Lee was removed in August 2017 by Franklin workers.
Gainesville, Fla.
A chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy paid for the removal of a monument to Confederate soldiers known locally as "Old Joe" that stood in front a building in downtown Gainesville for 113 years. It was moved to a private cemetery outside the city in August 2017.
Helena, Mont.
The state's capital city on Aug. 18, 2017 removed a memorial to Confederate soldiers that had been in a public park since 1916. the granite fountain, which was dismantled, had been donated by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. City Parks and Recreation Director Amy Teegarden told the Spokesman-Review that the fountain initially will be stored in a city warehouse -- but it could be reassembled at a future date.
Kansas City, Mo.
A Confederate monument was boxed up in summer 2017 and is slated to be removed. The Missouri division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy had asked Kansas City Parks and Recreation to find a new home for it.
Lexington, Ky.
Two 130-year-old Confederate statues were removed from downtown Lexington on October 18 after the state's attorney general issued an opinion giving the city permission to take them down and move them to a private cemetery. Lexington used private funds to take the statues, of Confederate General John Hunt Morgan and John Breckinridge, a former U.S. Vice President and the last Confederate Secretary of War. Private funds will cover the cost of their upkeep in the cemetery.
Los Angeles, Calif.
A large stone monument commemorating Confederate veterans was taken down Aug. 16 from the Hollywood Forever Cemetery after hundreds of people demanded its removal. The 6-foot granite marker was loaded into a pickup truck and taken to a storage facility. A petition calling for it to be taken down had garnered 1,300 signatures.
Louisville, Ky.
A statue of a Confederate soldier was removed from the University of Louisville campus after a legal battle between the city residents, the mayor and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. It was relocated to Brandenburg, Kentucky, which hosts Civil War reenactments.
Madison, Wis.
A plaque honoring Confederate soldiers was removed Aug. 17 from a cemetery not long after residents and city leaders began calling for it to be taken down. "The Civil War was an act of insurrection and treason and a defense of the deplorable practice of slavery," said Mayor Paul Soglin in a statement. "The monuments in question were connected to that action and we do not need them on city property."
Memphis, Tenn.
Crews removed two Confederate statues from Memphis parks on Dec. 20 after the city sold them to a private entity. The City Council voted unanimously earlier in the day to sell both Health Sciences and Fourth Bluff Parks where the Confederate statues, of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest and Confederate President Jefferson Davis, were located.
Nashville, Tenn.
The legendary Ryman Auditorium, where stars like Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn made their Grand Ole Opry debuts, quietly moved a sign on Sept. 21 hanging from the venue's upper level that read "1897 Confederate Gallery." Honoring an 1897 reunion of Confederate veterans at the Ryman, the sign had been shrouded over the years but has now been permanently removed from the main auditorium and added to a museum exhibit that explains the history of the 125-year-old music hall.
New Orleans, La.
New Orleans city workers removed four monuments in April dedicated to the Confederacy and opponents of Reconstruction. The city council had declared the monuments a public nuisance. The monuments removed were of Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard, Davis and Lee. Also removed was the Liberty Place Monument, which commemorated a Reconstruction Era white supremacist attack on the city's integrated police force. The mayor plans to replace them with new fountains and an American flag.
New York, N.Y.
Busts of Lee and Jackson were removed overnight on Aug. 17 from the Hall of Fame for Great Americans at Bronx Community College. Prior to its removal, Bronx Borough president Ruben Diaz Jr. had said "there is nothing great about two men who committed treason against the United States to fight to keep the institution of slavery in tact."
Orlando, Fla.
A Confederate statue known as "Johnny Reb" was moved in June 2017 by officials from Lake Eola Park to Greenwood Cemetery in response to public outcry about it being symbolic of hate and white supremacy. A spokesperson for Orlando's mayor told Fox News that city officials are working with historians on a new inscription to put the monument "in proper historical perspective."
Richmond, Va.
The Richmond school board voted 6-1 on June 18, 2018 to rename J.E.B. Stuart Elementary School to Barack Obama Elementary School. The process began several months prior and involved input from students, teachers, administrators and local stakeholders. Virginia is home to the largest number of Confederate monuments and symbols in the country.
Rockville, Md.
A 13-ton bronze Confederate statue that had stood for decades next to Rockville's Red Brick Courthouse was relocated in July next to a privately run Potomac River ferry named for a Confederate general. The relocation cost about $100,000, according to the Washington Post.
San Diego, Calif.
A plaque honoring Davis was quietly removed Aug. 16, 2017 from a downtown park. "This morning I ordered the immediate removal of a plaque honoring the Confederacy at Horton Plaza Park," Mayor Kevin Faulconer told the Los Angeles Times. "San Diegans stand together against Confederate symbols of division."
San Antonio, Texas
A Confederate statue was removed from Travis Park overnight Sept. 1, 2017 after the City Council voted 10-1 in favor of taking it down the previous day. There were no protesters during or after the removal, according to local media reports. "This is, without context, a monument that glorifies the causes of the Confederacy, and that's not something that a modern city needs to have in a public square," said San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg following the council vote.
San Antonio, Texas
A Jefferson Davis highway marker was removed in 2016.
St. Louis, Mo.
The Missouri Civil War Museum oversaw the removal in late June 2017 of a 32-foot granite and bronze monument from Forest Park, where it had stood for 103 years. It shouldered the costs of removal and will hold the monument in storage until a new home can be found for it. The agreement stipulates the monument can be re-displayed at a Civil War museum, battlefield or cemetery. In Boone County, a rock with a plaque honoring Confederate soldiers that had been removed from the University of Missouri campus was relocated a second time after the Charleston AEM church massacre to a historic site commemorating a nearby Civil War battle.
St. Petersburg, Fla.
St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman ordered city workers to remove a bronze Confederate marker at noon on Aug. 15, 2017 after determining that it was on city property. It's being held in storage until a new home can be found for it. "The plaque recognizing a highway named after Stonewall Jackson has been removed and we will attempt to locate its owner," Kriseman said in a statement to the Tampa Bay Times.
Washington, D.C.
The stewards of the National Mall announced this week that the exhibit alongside the Thomas Jefferson Memorial will be updated to showcase his status as both one of the country's founders and a slaveholder. "We can reflect the momentous contributions of someone like Thomas Jefferson, but also consider carefully the complexity of who he was," an official with the Trust told the Washington Examiner. "And that's not reflected right now in the exhibits."

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker introduced a bill in Sept. 2017 to remove Confederate statues from the U.S. Capitol Building.

The National Cathedral voted that same month to take down two stained-glass windows of Confederate generals. The removal could take a few days and workers seen putting up scaffolding around the windows to start the process.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, signed a bill to replace a statue of a Confederate general at the U.S. Capitol with one of Mary McLeod Bethune, a black woman who founded a school that became Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida. She'll become the first black female to be honored in Statuary Hall.
Worthington, Ohio
Worthington removed a historic marker Aug. 18 outside the former home of a Confederate general.
Email christopher.carbone@foxnews.com if you learn new information about the removal of Confederate monuments. Fox News' Nicole Darrah contributed to this report.

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Which Confederate statues were removed? A running list

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More than 30 cities across the United States have removed or relocated Confederate statues and monuments amid an intense nationwide debate about race and history. Here is a running list of all the monuments that have been removed and the cities that have removed them.

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C- Aug 18, 2017
R- It shows me why people say statues should remain.
A- The Washington Post.
A- The writer understands that slavery was an issue, however wants our history to remain.
P- To persuade readers to maintain statues.

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The statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee sits at the center of the park formerly dedicated to him, the site of recent violent demonstrations, in Charlottesville. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

Comment Gift Article
As an anthropologist who has studied the meaning of monuments and sacred spaces in other cultures, the recent controversy and violence surrounding Confederate monuments has been ethically challenging. I love my country, and part of my professional responsibility is to foster tolerance. I have also worked with our military to help thwart the Islamic State, an organization that instituted slavery in our time. As such, I detest the legacy of division, bigotry and slavery these monuments represent. But I think they should remain.

In the 1980s, I worked as an archaeologist at ancient Mayan ruins in Central America and saw how monuments to their rulers were defaced during the tumultuous fall of their civilization. The Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten similarly defaced and destroyed statues of earlier Egyptian gods in his religious reform 3,300 years ago, and Spanish conquistadors destroyed Aztec and Inca monuments and statuary in their war on idolatry in the New World.

And there are plenty of examples of the desecration of monuments in the 21st century. The Taliban blew up the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001; we aided Iraqis in toppling the statue of Saddam Hussein in Firdos Square in 2003; and nothing can compare to the scale of destruction of monuments at the hands of the Islamic State.

Simply removing monuments and moving them so they are out of sight is likewise not new, either. The Inca Empire of South America removed icons of conquered peoples' gods and effectively held them hostage in a temple in the Incan capital of Cuzco. In our time, the post-Soviet Russian government removed many statues of Lenin and others, which now reside in Muzeon Arts Park in Moscow.

People effectively act as though destruction of a monument exorcises its power and removal banishes the power from their midst. But these pieces of metal and stone only have the meaning we assign to them, and that meaning can take any form we like. They can be revered or reviled; honored or ridiculed; or co-opted for a new purpose.

I understand the affront that Confederate monuments are to those whose ancestors were held as slaves or died preserving our country, and to those who suffer and oppose racism today. However, destroying monuments takes a page out of the playbook of mobs across the centuries, lowering one's self to that moral plane.

Further, removing Confederate statues amounts to whitewashing our history, turning our heads away from the inconvenient truths of our past. We should let them stand and use them to remind ourselves of what we are and are not, the cost our forebears paid for our freedom and to educate our children.

And the facts are plain: The South seceded from the United States over the issue of slavery. Many Americans believed in the superiority of Europeans over Africans at that time. Slave owners used that belief to justify the owning and abuse of millions of human beings. In the late 1800s, the era of Jim Crow disenfranchisement of blacks was ushered in and continued until the 1950s. This period witnessed the greatest spike (especially from 1900 to 1930) in monument building honoring the Confederacy. A smaller spike occurred from 1954 to 1968, in reaction to the civil rights movement.

The Civil War was the single most devastating war our nation ever fought. Nearly as many Americans died in that war than all of our other wars combined. Americans never paid so dearly for their country and what it was to be. With regard to fighting against racist ideology, World War II claimed 400,000 American lives. These two wars may account for 80 percent of the blood spilled for our country.

Civil War monuments bear a constant testimony to all of this history, none of which should be forgotten. The monuments should remain, and we should constantly remind ourselves of what they represent.

When racists revere these monuments, those of us who oppose racism should double our efforts to use these monuments as tools for education. Auschwitz and Dachau stand as mute testimonials to a past that Europeans would never want to forget or repeat. Why not our Confederate monuments?

Destroying or removing monuments is the easy way out of our obligation to understand our past and improve our future. Monuments to our nation's racism can be as much a tool to counter it as they can be a tool to foment it. The choice and obligation is ours.

The Post's View: It's time for a full and fair reckoning with Confederate statues
Read more on this topic:
Tony Horwitz: Is the Confederacy finally about to die for good?

Bree Newsome: Go ahead, topple the monuments to the Confederacy. All of them.

E.J. Dionne Jr.: There's a right way to judge America's past
Dana Milbank: Obama offers the perfect response to the Confederate flag wavers

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Opinion | I detest our Confederate monuments. But they should remain.

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Comment Gift Article As an anthropologist who has studied the meaning of monuments and sacred spaces in other cultures, the recent controversy and violence surrounding Confederate monuments has been ethically challenging. I love my country, and part of my professional responsibility is to foster tolerance.

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C- Aug 18,2017
R- It allows me to see both sides of the argument in one article.
A- New York Times.
A- The writer doesn't express any emotion while they present both sides.
P- To inform readers on both sides.

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The political news cycle is fast, and keeping up can be overwhelming. Trying to find differing perspectives worth your time is even harder. That's why we have scoured the internet for political writing from the right and left that you might not have seen. Has this series exposed you to new ideas? Tell us how. Email us at ourpicks@nytimes.com.

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A statue honoring Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Va. Credit... Matt Eich for The New York Times

* Gracy Olmstead in The Federalist:
"We should also consider which parts of our history we are most proud of, and most eager to uphold. Conservatives believe in preserving and carrying on the best of the past - not its worst."
If the events of the past week prove anything to Ms. Olmstead, "it's that these memorials are splitting us further and further apart." She urges her readers - even those who do not want to see these statues taken down - to "seek to understand and sympathize" with those who support their removal. At the very least, she writes, "we can mitigate their toxic effect" by adding context or erecting new memorials. Read more "

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* Ben Shapiro in The Daily Wire:
"Everyone is trying to use the issue of Confederate monument removal as a club to wield against political opposition, and as a broadening mechanism for their own movements."
For Mr. Shapiro, the issue at hand has nothing to do with Confederate monuments. The reason we're really "talking about statues," he writes, is that they serve as a proxy argument for larger, political fights. The "truth" is that "Confederate statue removal is a local issue, not a national one." Read more "

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* Rod Dreher in The American Conservative:
"He fought for the wrong side and deserved to lose. But notice that after he lost, he called on all defeated Southerners to cease hostilities and to commit themselves to the service of the United States. [...] It mattered that he did not urge bitter resistance, but rather nobly counseled patriotism."
After New Orleans decided to take down its statue of Robert E. Lee in May, Mr. Dreher wrote a response to the controversy. He said he is "not losing sleep" over the removal of other Confederate leaders, but he's troubled by the move to take down a memorial to Lee, a "far more complex man" than many people realize. Read more "

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* Jonathan S. Tobin in The New York Post:
"A generation ago, nobody would have thought Washington or Jefferson controversial. Now it appears that even Mount Rushmore isn't safe, since among its quartet of greats, only Lincoln might be exempt from the iconoclasts."

Mr. Tobin believes the slippery slope reasoning of the president and others is not merely hypothetical - the logical result of the left's attempt to take down offensive statues has already been borne out in real life. He cites as his example an attempt to take down a famous statue of Theodore Roosevelt in front of New York's Natural History Museum. Read more "

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The empty pedestal of a statue that was pulled down by protesters in Durham, N.C., on Monday. Credit... Madeline Gray for The New York Times

* Gersh Kuntzman in The New York Daily News:
"Ever wonder why there are no statues of Adolf Hitler in Berlin?"
Mr. Kuntzman argues that Americans should treat their Confederate history the same way that Germany treats its Nazi past. He points out that "monuments are never about history itself" but rather about "what the people putting up the monument think about history." Read more "

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* Tyler Zimmer in Jacobin:
"The Confederate flag lionizes both racists and class traitors - indeed the two are inseparable."
According to Mr. Zimmer, the symbols of the Confederacy are not just about white supremacy, but also, inextricably, about class. Confederate flags and monuments, he writes, signify a "campaign by elites to hoodwink poor whites into throwing their lives away to protect ruling class wealth and privilege." Read more "

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* Adam Serwer in The Atlantic:
"To describe this man as an American hero requires ignoring the immense suffering for which he was personally responsible, both on and off the battlefield."

Mr. Serwer takes on the "myth of the kindly General Lee," arguing that this was a man "whose devotion to white supremacy outshone his loyalty to his country." There's no way, he writes, that one can defend Lee in "good conscience" unless one puts "tribe and race over country." Read more "

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Workers in Baltimore removed a Confederate statue early on Wednesday. Credit... Jerry Jackson/The Baltimore Sun, via Associated Press

* Eric Boehm in Reason:
"Baltimore offers a primer on the nonsensical slippery slope argument offered by defenders of the Confederate monuments."
At his news conference, Mr. Trump posed a rhetorical question to the assembled reporters, "Where does it stop?" Mr. Boehm responds by citing the example of the Baltimore City Council, which just this week unanimously passed a resolution to remove the city's Confederate monuments. Writing in the libertarian publication, Reason, Mr. Boehm puts it simply: "It stops....where it stops." Read more "

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* Ilya Somin in The Washington Post:
"The vast majority of monuments to Confederate leaders were erected to honor their service to the Confederacy, whose main reason for existing was to protect and extend slavery."
There are historical figures that pose a greater moral dilemma than that of Robert E. Lee, posits Mr. Somin. Woodrow Wilson poses one such example. However, he argues, "giving undeserved honor to the evil is at least as grave an error as denying proper recognition to those who merit it." Read more "

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* James M. McPherson in The New York Review of Books:
"The theme of liberty, not slavery, as the cause for which the South fought became a mantra in the writings of old Confederates and has been taken up by neo-Confederates in our own time."

In a 2001 article, Mr. McPherson traces the ways in which Confederate history has been rewritten to excise slavery as the animating issue at the heart of the Civil War and replace it with a "Lost Cause" theory of the conflict. The Lost Cause myth posits that "slavery was merely an incident," and the conflict was in fact all about "a difference of opinion about the Constitution." Read more "

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* Robert E. Lee in 1869 in The Republican Vindicator, via PBS:
"I think it wiser, moreover, not to keep open the sores of war but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, to commit to oblivion the feelings engendered."
How did Lee feel about Confederate statues? Perhaps it's best to refer to his own writing on the matter. Here, in a letter declining an invitation to attend an event memorializing the battle at Gettysburg, he writes about the importance of moving on. Read more "

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* The New York Times in 1865:
"So long as the South has an admiration for the rebellion, so long will the South be rebel at heart. [...] True patriotic devotion should redeem any portion of the Republic from reproach. It should bury forever every memorial calculated to perpetuate dishonor and disparagement."
On Aug. 16, 1865, 152 years before the most recent debate over memorializing Confederate statues, writers for The Times published this article, advocating the preservation of the "memorials of rebel cruelty." Read more "

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Want the Partisan Writing Roundup in your inbox? Sign up for the Have thoughts about this collection? Email feedback to ourpicks@nytimes.com. Morning Briefing Newsletter or the What We're Reading Newsletter.

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Right and Left on Removal of Confederate Statues (Published 2017)

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The political news cycle is fast, and keeping up can be overwhelming. Trying to find differing perspectives worth your time is even harder. That's why we have scoured the internet for political writing from the right and left that you might not have seen. Has this series exposed you to new ideas?

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C- 2017
R- It gives me general information on the  topic.
A- The First Amendment Encyclopedia.
A- No emotion, it gives current details.
P- It informs the reader on the topic as a whole.

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A statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee is removed from the University of Texas campus, early Monday morning, Aug. 21, 2017, in Austin, Texas. University of Texas President Greg Fenves ordered the immediate removal of statues of Robert E. Lee and other prominent Confederate figures from a main area of campus, saying such monuments have become "symbols of modern white supremacy and neo-Nazism." (AP Photo/Eric Gay, used with permission from The Associated Press)

Civilizations build monuments to honor leaders and heroes.They may celebrate local or national heroes, or seek to bind an empire (as do the many statues throughout the British Commonwealth to Queen Victoria).

Monuments have occasionally been destroyed due to public sentiment

On occasion, popular sentiments will result in the destruction of monuments, as when the statue of King George III was destroyed after the Declaration of Independence was read in New York City.This is hardly an American phenomenon. Russians destroyed many statues of Lenin and Stalin after the fall of the Iron Curtain, and Iraqis destroyed statues of Saddam Hussein after American troops captured Baghdad.

One complexity is that statues clearly commemorate the values of the time and place where they were constructed and thus might illumine the history of such periods.Moreover, individuals may react differently to statues depending on their region, their race, or their historical understandings.

Critics note the difference between monuments to Founding Fathers and Confederate leaders

In a 2017 press conference in which he defended Confederate monuments, President Donald Trump observed that early presidents, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, were slaveholders, and yet most people do not think that their statues should be dismantled.

Critics noted that such men (in contrast to Confederate leaders and generals) had worked to establish, rather than to destroy the nation.They might further note that the historic sites of the homes of such presidents are increasingly weaving the stories of their slaves into the narratives of their lives.

Some see Confederate statues as honoring past; others as an affront to freedom

Hundreds of southern towns, which have long renounced the institution of slavery, have generic representations of Confederate soldiers in town parks on town squares.For many, they recognize the heroic sacrifice of ancestors for what they believed, which may have included anything from a desire to defend their homes, to a defense of states' rights, and issues other than the perpetuation of slavery. Some may celebrate idealized versions of Confederate leaders who never actually existed or may recognize such leaders (General Robert E. Lee, for example) for attempting to heal the nation after the Civil War ended.

Many of these statues to Confederate leaders were erected from 1890 to 1925, a time which marked the birth of Jim Crow segregation laws throughout the South, the suppression of black voting,and the rise of increased violence against blacks.African-Americans who approached such statues on public property, especially in front of courthouses, may well have questioned whether they could expect the "equal protection of the laws" promised by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.Similarly, African-American children attending a school named after a Confederate General, or a mascot designated as a rebel, might well wonder whether they will be equally accepted as white students.

Individuals are free under the First Amendment to construct Confederate memorials on private property. There is a large statue to Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest in Nashville, Tennessee. Forrest, a Tennessean who was generally regarded as a great tactician, also was the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. While the private monument remains, there is renewed debate about whether a bust of General Forrest in the State Capitol Building (public property) should be retained. Under the government speech doctrine, the government can display or not display certain monuments. However, the government may have to follow certain legally specified procedures before it can remove monuments. In this photo, the statue of Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest is put up along Interstate 65 in Nashville, Tenn., in 1998. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, used with permission from the Associated Press)

Government entities grapple with Confederate monuments on public property

Individuals are, of course, free under the First Amendment to construct memorials on private property.

There is a large statue to Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest in Nashville, Tennessee.Forrest, a Tennessean who was generally regarded as a great tactician, also was the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.While the private monument remains, there is renewed debate about whether a bust of General Forrest in the State Capitol Building (public property) should be retained. Under the government speech doctrine, the government can display or not display certain monuments. However, the government may have to follow certain legally specified procedures before it can remove monuments.

Protests surrounding statues turn dangerous

The issue came to a head in August 2017 when the city of Charlottesville, Virginia, home to the University of Virginia, which was founded by Thomas Jefferson, decided to remove a statue of General Robert E. Lee from a public park.This decision led to a Friday night torch-light parade through the grounds of the University of Virginia by Neo-Nazis and members of the alt-right, who while ostensibly there to protest the statue's removal (and who had a First Amendment right to protest), chanted Nazi and anti-Semitic slogans.

The next day, demonstrators and counter-protestors confronted one another in downtown Charlottesville, and one of the demonstrators, who appears to have Nazi sympathies, plowed his car through a group of counter-demonstrators resulting in the death of Heather Heyer.

President Donald Trump subsequently held a press conference in which he appeared to be criticizing all sides equally (Shear and Haberman, 2017).This sparked further outrage and charges that he was morally equating those who had been violent and those who were not.Protestors subsequently demolished a Confederate statue in Durham, North Carolina, and the mayor of Baltimore, Maryland ordered the removal of a number of Confederate memorials in the city.

Other proposed solutions have included simply leaving the statues as monuments to history, moving them to parks or museums where they can be placed in historical context, or adding disclaimers or other monuments (to, for example, former slaves) that would provide a wider context.

The case of Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans (2015) established that a state does not have to make its license plates a forum for the display of Confederate flags, but it did not mandate that they prevent it under the government speech doctrine. For now, at least, most such decisions are likely to be made at the state or local level. In this Wednesday, April 18, 2001 file photo, a Confederate supporter who identified himself as "Bonzo" of Enterprise, Ala., pays homage to the statue of former Confederate President Jefferson Davis at the Alabama Capitol in Montgomery, Ala. (AP Photo/Dave Martin, used with permission from the Associated Press)

Government speech doctrine grants free speech rights to government

The case of Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans (2015) established that a state does not have to make its license plates a forum for the display of Confederate flags, but it did not mandate that they prevent it under the government speech doctrine.For now, at least, most such decisions are likely to be made at the state or local level.

Christopher Ingraham reports that Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol (where each state has designated two monuments) contains 12 statues of Confederate leaders, including Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis, and only four of African-Americans.

John Vile is professor of political science and dean of the Honors College at Middle Tennessee State University. He is co-editor of the Encyclopedia of the First Amendment. This article was originally published in 2017.

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A statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee is removed from the University of Texas campus, early Monday morning, Aug. 21, 2017, in Austin, Texas. University of Texas President Greg Fenves ordered the immediate removal of statues of Robert E.

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C- June 222, 2019
R- It allows me to hear more recent news.
A- The New York Times.
A- No emotion, I can verify a few  things from news channels I've watched.
P- To inform on what cities are currently doing.

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What Should Happen to Confederate Statues? A City Auctions One for $1.4 Million (Published 2019)

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The debate over whether to remove Confederate monuments divided the country. The question of what to do with them next is just as complicated.

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C- N/A
R-  The image shows what people  are doing to statues.
A- N/A
A- Have seen image in several other articles.
P- To inform on what is happening to statues.

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C- N/A
R- It shows a confederate statue. Showing me what I'm writing about.
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A-  I've seen other statues like it while at Gettysburg.
P-  It shows what types of statues we are speaking of.

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C- N/A
R- This image shows a famous  confederate leader, Robert E.Lee
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A- You can find the statue on other sites.
P- It gives info on a major Confederate player.

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R- It shows me that police are now involved.
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A- I saw a similar images in videos and on news.
P- It kind of represents that we need to protect statues.

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C- Aug 24,2017
R- This is important because it gives insight on what counterclaims to my statement are.
A- Fox Business
A- It has info from other people and sources.
P- It does indeed show bias, however, it still give me counterclaims.

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Why Democrats want to remove confederate monuments

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C-  Aug 22,, 2017
R-  It is important because it gives me facts and opinions I could quote.
A- Fox Business
A- It has similar info as other sources.
P- It does show bias, however still gives facts.

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Should Confederate monuments be taken down?

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C- N/A
R- The image shows a confederate statue being removed.
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A- The image has been on other sites.
P- To inform viewers on what is happening.