Jim good afternoon. And i say that with some trepidation, because our audience is national and international. So, good morning to some of you and good evening to some of you. I am jim grossman, the executive director of the American Historical Association. And this is an initial experiment in something that we are likely to call history behind the headlines. The aha considers Historical Context and perspective essential to decisionmaking in public culture and especially in all aspects of public policy. The aha is a membershipsupported organization, just a reminder. One has to say these things, anybody who watches Public Television or listens to public radio is ready for this. If you would like to become a member and support this type of content, membership links are located in the chat on zoom and in the comments on facebook live. I want to give an especially grateful thankful to History Channel for their generous sponsorship of this webinar. Lets get started. It is an honor to introduce todays panelists, annette gordonreed, professor of law and history at harvard university. And david blight, professor of history and director of the gilderlehrer center for the study of slavery, abolition and resistance at yale university. The professors are Pulitzer Prize winning historians and they have won lots of other prizes as well. They have written and spoken frequently and insightfully on issues relating to monuments, history, memory and our nations continued failure to fully confront the implications of its own history. Professor gordonreeds most recent book is most blessed of the patriarchs, Thomas Jefferson and the empire of the imagination. Professor blights is Frederick Douglass, prophet of freedom. Both of these scholars are notable for the way we remember and honor those people as complicated. Whether we are thinking about Frederick Douglass or Thomas Jefferson. We are going to have roughly 35 minutes of moderated discussion, after which there will be questions from the audience. And i apologize in advance that given the number of people, we will not be able to address probably even most of the questions that we will get. We will do our best. So, lets get started. Lets start with the meaning and implications of removing confederate statues from our public landscape. Which, i know both of you, david and annette, have discussed this frequently and in all sorts of venues. This is not a new issue, but something is clearly different this time around. So lets start with what is different and why. Annette, you have referred to what is happening now as a quote a great awakening. Wakening up is always a good place to start. So where do we start there . Annette i think it is different this time and i do not know a precise reason but i have theories. Obviously, the killing of george floyd provoked a lot of soulsearching on the part of people. The nature of the video, the stark nature of the video actually captured peoples attention in a way that hasnt happened before. It could be because we are in the middle of a pandemic and people have been cloistered and have been told to for the basis of the community, people were doing something that made them think about other people, that they had to think about other people. I have a feeling that may have contributed to it as well. The fact that people could focus on it, and the fact that we are engaged in typically not something americans do or have not done recently, in a communal fashion. Looking at this, it was said, something had to happen. It struck people viscerally in a way that the killing of other people have not. People were concerned about Trayvon Martin and so forth, but i think the social circumstances in which this happened, and historians always look to this, the context is different. That made a difference in the way that people responded to it. Jim what is interesting, we have the statues being toppled, we have the being toppled in the context that you just talked about. These statues are part of a story and they tell a story. One thing i am curious about, and maybe david, you can speak to this, is this the death of a lost cause . David probably not. But we can hope. [laughter] i try to see this moment now, no one should predict anything right now in this climate, especially as historians. But it is really the culmination of a 150year counterattack on the lost cause ideology. The lost cause ideology takes form right after the war, especially in the 1870s and 1880s. The Confederate Monuments came out of a later time than that. During the jim crow era. When the united daughters of the confederacy and the united confederate veterans took hold of that process. But it was an ideology, a racial ideology, an ideology of white supremacy, and it became not a story of loss at all, it became a victory narrative. The victory was over reconstruction. But the attack back on the lost cause, led by Frederick Douglass and many others is 150 years old. As early as 1871, right after lee died he died in 1870 right after, douglass wrote a piece in which he said he was sick and tired of the nauseating flatteries of robert e lee. He wondered why the person who killed the most Union Soldiers and killed the most americans in dividing the country, was getting all the accolades. This is an old set of arguments, however, we obviously now have a different politics. If it hadnt been for the massive protests in the streets this past month, massive numbers of people in the streets, i doubt Police Forces of various kinds of would have allowed people to tear down monuments as they have. Police have, not always, but by and large have been letting this happen. So there is a politics in the streets that is bringing this about. I would just add right now, i dont have any data on this but trumpism, lets be honest, the nature of our politics for the last three or four years is out there in the streets. Is everybody demanding a Confederate Monument be removed . Or attacking a Confederate Monument . Or even other kinds of monuments . Are they always thinking about trump . Probably not. But trump has developed a toxic kind of politics that is now bringing out all kinds of resistance that we had not earlier seen. And it is directly related to police killings. But it is also, i think, related to a bursting out of rage against trumpism. I just hope this can be harnessed somehow into something. Jim that was my next question, was the harnessing. You talked here about how the politics affects what happens in the streets. Right before that, annette framed the politics and what is happening in the streets in essence as a larger context that ties together. So, i am curious so the politics affects what is happening in the streets, and you have explained how that happens, i wonder if both of you could talk about how what happens in the streets affects the politics. So, we pulled down a whole bunch of monuments. So what . Annette it is an interesting question. We were talking about this before, we had this moment where huge numbers of people were finally beginning to look toward the question of policing in america. Particularly, the policing of the africanamerican community. And voicing support for black lives matter. And then, the focus shifts to statues. For me, there is a bit of frustration it is not that i dont think that monuments and statues are not important, but it is way more important to get the issue of police reform, voter suppression, those kinds of things on the front burner. We have fallen into battles about culture, this sort of culture war thing that deflects from real economic, social kinds of issues that brought people out to the streets to begin with. I mean, people are being killed. Africanamericans feel threatened by police. This is something that has been going on for decades. And everybody can tell you a story. Many black people can tell you a story about people that they knew, that they know of who went into police stations and didnt come out. People who had encounters with police that ended in death for minor things. Those kind of issues that brought people out. I want to talk about monuments and i think theyre important but i dont want us to get away from those kinds of central issues. Whats going to happen november 3 with the election . Voter suppression, all those kinds of things are the things i really primarily would like to be focused on, so there is a way that we have this moment, but the moment, we can lose it, lose the momentum on that if we focus too much on the wrong things. As important as they are. David that is a powerful argument, annette. And one of the ways it manifests is that it is easier to oppose a monument than it is to figure out a vast new social policy. Again, we are historians. We like evidence and all of that. One of the things i wish people would do now, is actually going ando and read the policing justice act. This is the house bill. Theres a lot in there. It is not everything. But it is a new kind of civil rights act. It even has a federal antilynching law and it. In it. There is a lot in that act. That is how this has to get converted, hopefully. Harnessed into a new politics. You know, a new civil rights regime of some sort. However, what is interesting about the monuments is we do have a Tipping Point here. See this throughout history. We reach a point where somehow, people who would have really Confederate Monuments a year ago cant quite do it now. Even republicans in the senate are saying, well, maybe those military bases, maybe that wasnt such a good idea after all. So there is a Tipping Point here that we werent at even a year ago. Annette absolutely. David we werent at in the summer of 2015 after the charleston massacre. Back then, it was about taking the Confederate Flag down and a few monuments were under duress. [laughter] now it is everything confederate. Annette everybody. David it is everything confederate. Annette grant david yeah. Every moment like, every Tipping Point has excess. It is going to have excesses. And everybody is moaning right now how could you take down a grant statue . You know, he was bequeathed one slave and he freed that slave and so on, he saved the union, he was the general. Ok, right. There are going to be excesses, and we have to be able to stand up and say, you know what, toppling that one, that is wrong. Annette yeah, thats wrong. Yeah. David topple that one . Yeah ok. I am with you. Annette you make choices every single day. We do that all the time. The point is, how it takes place, the kind of discussion that takes place about it. Some will stay and some will go. Jim all three of us have talked about this. There is not an inevitable slippery slope. This is a ridiculous argument. And then, since you, annette, you have written prizewinning work about jefferson, about the founders in general. This is what is constantly brought up by the people who say that inevitably, all the icons will be smashed. What are the criteria that you can imagine using, thinking about, when you say, no, theres judgment here. Annette the criteria, there is lots of them. The one that i have always given is distinguishing the confederates from the founders is that the founders created the country, and the confederates tried to destroy the country. I think thats a pretty good bright line rule. And when you lose the war, you dont usually get to continue glorifying yourself by putting up statues in Public Places mocking the people who defeated you, you know, the confederates were vanquished. There is no reason for them to be there. The confederacy was a branch. If you think of the country as a river, it was sort of a branch that went off to nowhere. There was nothing they can contribute to us that we cant get from some other place. And it is not what we stand for. Their values are not values that we stand for. African chattel slavery, the inferiority, they specifically repudiated jefferson and the declaration of independence. Alexander stephens did. So, we could do without them. The founders are different because they found a the country. Unded the it is hard for me to think of living in a place without telling the story or actually commemorating, not celebrating. When you think of what a statue is about, to me, it is not about, this was the greatest this was a god, this was the greatest person ever lived or whatever. It is about recognizing that this person did something important. And i think founding the United States there are some people who dont think it was a good idea but, if you think it was a good idea, these people did that, and it is important to see them in all of their complexity. To see them in all aspects. So you have jefferson. You have washington. But you mention that they bought and sold people. You mention those kinds of things, the good with the bad. We are, to my mind, stuck with these people who created the country. The confederacy, that is not a story that continues in any kind of way. We have made use of the things that jefferson, in particular, ideals, put forth. In particular, ideals. Whether it is some religious belief in your heart, those ideas have been useful. So that is a distinction i would make. I understand people say he owned slaves and therefore they should go. But that is like, you cant redo your parentage. You cant stop and pretend that those people did not exist, and that they didnt do something that most of us think was a positive thing, but you have got to tell the whole story about them. It creates, to my mind, a much more mature attitude about history and historical figures. They are not about our best friends. They are not people we want to hang out with. These are people who did things that we have to know about. In order to understand who we are and to do things differently, take the best of what they gave and reject the things that were bad. I think it is hiding your head in the sand to pretend that they didnt do anything positive, or that the negative things automatically outweigh those. Lets talk about both of them. David annette, can i ask you a question of a sort . Not that you have to answer for everyone who studies the founders by any means, but first of all, i would say, it is so true. To focus. If we could help the public focus their mind on just what the confederacy was, it was an insurgent revolution to create a slave holders republic. I would just say to people, we dont want to name too many books here but you should read stephanie mccurrys most recent book called confederate reckoning. If you have any kind of progressive view of the United States and if you actually believe in our pluralism and in equality, you cant read that book without a tremendous sigh of relief that the confederacy did not win. [laughter] annette yeah david it is really important to understand that. It only lasted for years. It only lasted four years. But it is still here. Annette i was going to answer your question you let them off the hook. If you put them, and they would like nothing more than to be lumped in with washington and jefferson. We are just like those people. No. That is not david they were of a vessel of the American Revolution, resisting centralized authority, that was the central tenor of tenet of the lost cause. Annette a lot of people believe that, but they never quote stevens. They dont quote the constitution. They dont look at the documents that framed the government and society. Yeah, they were slaveowners and they were racist and they may have been like jefferson and washington in that sense. But the documents that they set for their nation dont comport with anything that we say we believe. We can take the constitution, transformed by the 13th, 14th and 15th amendment. We can take the declaration and make any society. We cannot take the cornerstone speech, we cant take the constitution of the secession, we cant do anything with that and continue in peace in this country. David or jefferson daviss 1200page memoir. Annette yes. David on every page it defends the existence of slavery because africans were savages. But here is a quick question annette ok. David we are living in a moment right now when there are a lot of people i will just name it, the 1619 project suggested that americans ought to reconsider what the founding is. That the founding is really when slaves arrived and not the creation of the republic out of the American Revolution and the writing of the u. S. Constitution. And maybe that kind of set of assumptions was out there anyway, i am not just blaming the 1619 project. But there are a lot of people who say that the founding was all racist anyway, it was all in the service of slavery, so why not get rid of jefferson . I dont believe that necessarily. Annette i know, it is hard to respond to that. In the first place, if you want to pick something other than 1776 as the founding, you might pick the british founding. 1607. You might pick when englishmen rolled up on american cotton and said, we have discovered it, and began to push Indigenous People off the land. So that is a point. Certainly, 1619 is the point. But that was part of the english empire. There was no United States of america at that point. As historians, we cant treat that as if those moments put forth some sort of inevitable outcome that we end up at 1776 and then we end up with me sitting in my apartment now. Anything could have happened at that point. So i think the founding was racist. Certainly the constitution protected slavery. We could argue about that. Protected slavery. We should have sean here. David i think he is watching. I think he is watching. [laughs] annette it protected slavery, but it also unleashed an antislavery movement, the revolution did. What happened from that was not inevitable. But it did. The fact is, africanamerican people, other people said wait a minute, this applies to us as well. And that has been the basis for a struggle up until now. That is real. It is as real as the founding is many things. It is not any one thing. And it is what you make of it. And people made Different Things of it. Jim so first, you are focusing on the east coast. Which we do. And on the english. What happens if you shift the angle of vision . There are