Tag Archives: US Civil War

The Associated Press reports: Work crews wielding a giant crane, harnesses and power tools wrested an imposing statue of Gen. Stonewall Jackson from its concrete pedestal along Richmond, Virginia’s famed Monument Avenue on Wednesday, just hours after the mayor ordered the removal of all Confederate statues from city land. Mayor Levar Stoney’s decree came weeks after Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam …

ABC News reports: The Alabama Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the majority-black city of Birmingham violated a state law protecting Confederate monuments when it put plywood panels in front of a towering obelisk in a downtown park. The all-Republican court reversed a circuit judge’s ruling that struck down Alabama’s 2017 law protecting Confederate monuments as an unconstitutional violation of the …

Politico reports: President Donald Trump praised Confederate General Robert E. Lee at a rally in Ohio Friday night during a soliloquy in which he also praised a number of Ohioans, including Union General Ulysses S. Grant. “So Robert E. Lee was a great general and Abraham Lincoln developed a phobia, he couldn’t beat Robert E. Lee,” Trump told supporters at …

USA Today reports: The city of Memphis sold two public parks containing Confederate monuments to a nonprofit Wednesday in a massive, months-in-the-planning operation to take the statues down overnight. The City Council unanimously approved the sale of Health Science Park, home of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, and its easement on Fourth Bluff Park, home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, …

Politico reports: White House chief of staff John Kelly defended his criticism of Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) on Monday night by continuing to insist she was insensitive and self-congratulatory during a ceremony to dedicate an FBI building in Florida. “Well, I’ll go back and talk about … her comments and at the reception afterwards,” Kelly told Fox News host Laura …

Newsweek reports: John Oliver gave an elaborate—and sometimes stinging—explanation as to why statues of Confederate leaders should not remain standing Sunday night. The British comedian dedicated the large majority of his HBO comedy show Last Week Tonight to a comprehensive history lesson about the divisive monuments that critics say celebrate America’s dark past. “If the Confederacy was not about slavery, …

The Hill reports: Vice President Mike Pence said on Tuesday that the United States should be building more monuments around the country, not tearing them down. Pence was asked on “Fox & Friends” Tuesday morning whether he supported local municipalities around the country in their efforts to remove Confederate statues in the wake of the violence in Charlottesville, Va., and …

“The Confederate Battle Flag may mean many things, but with those things it represents a defiance against abolition and against civil rights. The symbol was used to enslave the little brothers and sisters of Jesus, to bomb little girls in church buildings, to terrorize preachers of the gospel and their families with burning crosses on front lawns by night. That …

Via NBC News: In solemn tribute to the nine people gunned down at a Charleston church, two flags atop the statehouse in Columbia, South Carolina, were lowered to half-staff on Thursday. They will stay there for nine days in honor of each victim. But in a bewildering display, a Confederate flag on statehouse grounds is still flying high. It wasn’t …

Via Raw Story: The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday ruled that Texas could not prohibit a group that celebrates the Confederacy from having their own specialty license plates. The federal appeals panel ruled 2-1 that the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles Board engaged in “viewpoint discrimination” and violated the First Amendment by rejecting the Sons of Confederate …