A memorial to Coretta Scott and Martin Luther King Jr. has received stinging criticisms, but time will tell whether ‘The Embrace’ will endure as a cherished work of public art.
The monument ‘Rumors of War’ depicts a young African American in urban streetwear sitting atop a horse.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
With a few notable exceptions, public monuments across the United States are overwhelmingly white and male. A movement is slowly growing to tell a more inclusive history of the American experience.
Charlottesville city workers drape a tarp over the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in 2018. Debate over removing the statue continues today.
AP Photo/Steve Helber, File
Once stripped of their symbolic power, problem monuments offer what educators call ‘teachable moments,’ helping people assess society’s current values and compare them with what mattered in the past.
Intentionally mutilated head of Egyptian Pharaoh Hatshepsut.
Elizabeth Ellis
As US protesters deface monuments of once revered leaders, they are drawing from an ancient tradition used by both marginalized people and those in power.
The Mississippi state flag, with a representation of the Confederate battle flag, is raised one last time over the state Capitol building on July 1, 2020.
AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis
Public officials and individual citizens alike are more likely to oppose the presence of Confederate symbols when informed it may be bad for local business.
Unveiling of a statue of Richard T. Greener, the first Black professor at the University of South Carolina, in 2018.
Jason Ayer
As momentum builds to remove statutes that pay homage to Confederates and others who sought to uphold white supremacy, a historian explores questions about what should be erected in their place.
Protesters at the Richmond, Virginia monument to Confederate General Robert E. Lee on June 18, 2020.
Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Shannon M. Smith, College of Saint Benedict & Saint John's University
Protests of Confederate flags and monuments have grown since 2015, but resistance is not new. African Americans have been protesting against Confederate monuments since they were erected.
Workers remove the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Richmond, Virginia on July 8, 2020.
AP Photo/Steve Helber
Demands to remove, or preserve, the statues polarize communities, rather than building a shared future.
Brazil’s ‘Festa Confederada.’ Organizers say the annual event celebrates their Southern American heritage, but some Black Brazilians disagree.
Jordan Brasher
Symbols of the Confederacy can be seen in Brazil, Ireland, Germany and beyond. While some people may not grasp their racist history, others clearly fly the ‘rebel flag’ to defend white supremacy.
Construction workers extracted a Calhoun statue in Charleston, South Carolina on June 24, 2020.
Sean Rayford/Getty Images
Despite his defense of slavery, the former vice president and US senator from South Carolina has been honored with statues and streets, schools and counties. That’s finally changing.
Richmond’s towering 1890 Robert E. Lee statue is transformed by protests following the killing of George Floyd.
John McDonnell/The Washington Post via Getty Images
A Richmond court says the city cannot remove its controversial Robert E. Lee sculpture because an 1890 land deed gave the Confederate monument ‘to the people’ of Virginia, not its government.
Richmond’s towering Robert E. Lee statue is transformed by protests following the killing of George Floyd. Is removal next?
John McDonnell/The Washington Post via Getty Images
On June 19, a court will decide whether Virginia must obey a 1890 deed that gave the state a plot of prime Richmond land as long as it would ‘faithfully guard’ the Robert E. Lee statue erected there.
The statue of Sir John A. Macdonald being cleaned after it was vandalized in Montreal in 2018.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
The vandalism of colonial statues is an expression of political protest against the celebration of settler colonialism in Canada.
Decorated with ornaments purchased, created and inherited for years, even generations, Christmas trees are a reflection of a family’s history and tastes.
John Morgan/flickr
Take a good look at those old Christmas ornaments before hanging them on the tree – you may find it’s time to retire some family keepsakes.
A damaged Confederate statue lies on a pallet in a warehouse in Durham, N.C. on Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017, after protesters yanked it off its pedestal in front of a government building.
AP Photo/Allen Breed
Where do old Confederate statues go when they die? The former Soviet bloc countries could teach the US something about dealing with monuments from a painful past.
Marx’s tombstone was vandalised with a hammer in February 2019.
Paasikivi via Wikimedia Commons
Anne C. Bailey, Binghamton University, State University of New York
Toppling statues devoted to Confederate soldiers may be a joyous moment for protesters who fight white supremacy, but after the statues fall, structural racism remains, a scholar on slavery argues.
‘Early Days.’ Detail of Frank Happersberger’s pioneer monument, San Francisco, California, 1894. Photo by Lisa Allen.
Cynthia Prescott
Many cities are removing their Confederate statues. But pioneer monuments represent a racist past, too. There are at least 200 of them, and their future is now being debated.
Gov.-elect Ralph Northam won handily in Virginia with a campaign focused on abortion rights, racial justice and support for immigration. He has black voters and northern Virginia’s diverse suburbs to thank for the victory.
Cliff Owen/Reuters
In Virginia, suburbanites, city-dwellers and black voters together rebuffed racism as an electoral strategy and handed Dems a huge win. Is this diverse coalition the future of Old Dominion politics?
A Confederate statue lies on a pallet in a warehouse in Durham, North Carolina after protesters toppled and defaced it.
AP Photo/Allen Breed