WASHINGTON, Sept 15 (NNN-AGENCIES) — An independent commission in the United States is recommending the removal of a controversial statue honoring the pro-slavery American South, an official said, as the country continues reexamining its painful racial past.
The move is part of the commission’s final report to Congress, after it recommended earlier this year renaming nine military bases bearing the name of Confederate officers, who fought in defense of slavery during America’s Civil War of 1861-1865.
In the final part of its report, the commission also recommended renaming a thousand additional US defense properties, including two military ships and sports grounds belonging to the army, the vice-president of the commission, Ty Seidule, said Wednesday.
The Confederate Memorial, erected in 1914, sits in Arlington National Cemetery and features a woman wearing a crown of olive leaves, a symbol of the pro-slavery American South before the Civil War.
Seidule said some of the people represented on the pedestal symbolize slavery.
“Two of those figures are enslaved people and it’s the myth that there are happy enslaved people. It’s doesn’t show the monstruous nature of slavery,” Seidule said. “Instead, it is this myth that the enslaved were ‘happy,’ and of course this is a lie.”
But while it recommended that the statue be brought down, the panel decided that Confederate soldiers buried in the same cemetery outside of the US capital, where American military heroes lay in rest, will stay there.
“The law is very, very clear on that, we agree and don’t want to remove any of the remains or disturb any remains that were put there well over a hundred years ago,” Seidule said.
The final decision on renaming all the sites will be with the Pentagon.
The total cost of all the renaming is estimated at $62 million, according to the commission.
The report comes in the wake of mass protests calling for racial justice triggered by the killing of George Floyd in May 2020.
The issue of America’s racial past remains highly polarizing.
Former Republican President Donald Trump in 2020 vetoed a defense budget that provided funds for the commission, until the veto was overridden by Congress. — NNN-AGENCIES
