Talk about recent debates over historical monuments, discussing how people could make decisions about removing or contextualize exam based on Historical Information and public sentiment. The american historical so cetacean associated and recorded this event. 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 thank you 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 center of slavery, resistance and abolition of slavery 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 leaders are notable for the insistence of people and the way that we honor those people are complicated. Whether we are thinking about frederick dallas 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, 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. Lets get started. No lets start with the meaning and implications of removing cadet frederick statues from our public landscape. Which i know, both of you, david and annette have discussed frequently and in all sorts of venues. This is not a new issue, but something is clearly different at this time. So, lets start with whats different and why. And that, he referred to whats happening now as a awakening. Waking up is always a good place to start, so why dont we start there . Well, i think its different this time. I dont know a precise reason, but i have some series. Obviously, the killing of george floyd provoked a lot of soul searching. 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 clustered added till two, and in the community, theyre actually doing something that wed think about other people, that they had to think about other people. Ive a feeling that that may have contributed to it as well. The fact people could focus on it and the fact that we are engaged in a typically lots of americans do or havent done recently in a communal fashion. Looking at this, people Say Something had to happen. This struck people bitterly that the killings of other people have not. That is always people concerned about trip on martin, so forth, but i think the social circumstances that historians always like to this, the context is different, and that made a difference to the way people have responded to anything. So, whats interesting then is, so we have the statues being toppled. We have the statues being toppled in the context that you just talked about. These statues are part of a story, and they tell stories. So, one day i am curious about, and maybe david you could speak to this is this the death of a lost cause . Probably not, but we could hope. I try to see this moment now and again. No its putting anything right now in this climate, especially as historians. But it really is a combination of about 150 year counterattack on the lost cause ideology. It takes form right after the war, especially 18 seventies, an 18 eighties. Confederate monuments came out of a leader here than that, during the jim crow era. When the united daughters of the confederacy and you know the confederate veterans took hold of that process. But it wasnt ideology, you know, racial ideology, and ideology of white supremacy, and it became not a story of loss at all. It became a victory narrative, and the pictures of a reconstruction. The attack back on the laws clause led by fire fredericton goes and many of them was 150 years old, as early as 1871. Right after a league died, he died in 1870. Shortly after, that was an early 71. Right after that, douglas wrote a piece in which he said he was sick and tired, quote, of the nauseating flatteries of robert e. Lee. You wondered why the president killed the most Union Soldiers, what killed the most americans to divide the country was getting all the accolades. So, this is an old set of arguments. However, we obviously not have to politic. If it hadnt been for the massive protests in the streets these past month, massive numbers of people in the streets, i doubt police forces, the various kinds, would have allowed people to tear down monuments as they have. Police have not always, but by and large been letting this happen. So, there is a politics on the streets and bring this about, and i guess i would add right now, at a honeyed out on this, but trumpism. Lets just be honest, the nature of our politics, the lost three and a half, four years, this out there in the streets. Now, is everybody defending a Confederate Monument be removed, or attacking a Confederate Monument, or even other kinds of monuments . Are you 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 its also, i think, related to a bursting out of rage against trumpism. I just hope this can be harnessed somehow it is something that was my next question, the harnessing. Youve talked here about how the politics affect what happens in the streets, and right before that and it framed the politics and whats happening in the streets, in essence, as a larger context that ties together. So, i am curious the politics effects will happen in the streets, and it explained how that happens. I wonder if either of both you could talk about how it happens in the streets effects of politics. We pulled out a whole bunch of monuments. So what . Well, its interesting question we are talking about this before. We had this moment we had huge numbers of people, finally, beginning to look to the question of policing in america. Particularly policing at the African American community, and voicing support for black lives matter, and then the focus shifts to statues and, you know, for me, theres a little bit of frustration. Is that i dont think monuments and statues are important, but its way more important to get the issue of Police Reform voter suppression, those kinds of things on the front burner, and we have fallen into battles about culture, these sort of culture were things that deflect from real economic, social kinds of issues that brought people out in history to begin with. People are being killed. African americans feel threatened by police. This is on that has been going on for decades, and everybody can tell you a story, many black people can tell you stories about people that they knew, they know of who went into plea stations and didnt come out. People who had encounters with police that ended in death, were minor things. Those kinds of that kind of issue that brought people out, i want to talk about monuments, and i think they are important, but i dont want us to get away from that, from those kinds of essential issues. What will happen november 3rd, with the election . You know, voter suppression, all those kinds of things are the things i think i would like to be focused on. Theres a way that we have this moment, the moment can sort of move and we could lose it, there is momentum on that focus too much on the wrong things. As important as they are, you know. I have a powerful argument in that, and one of the ways that manifests is that it is easier to oppose the monument that it has to figure out a new social policy. One of the things i would, again, we are historians, we like evidence, and all of that, but you know, one of the things i wish people would do now is actually go read the policing and justice act. This is the house bill. Theres a lot in their. You know, its not everything, but its a new kind of civil rights idea, it has the antilynching law in their. Theres a lot in that act and, you know, thats how this has to get converted, hopefully, earnest into a new politics. A, you know, a new civil rights regime of some sort. However, whats interesting about the monuments is we do have a Tipping Point here, and we see these throughout history, when we reach a point or somehow people who have really defended Confederate Monuments your ago cant quite do it now. Even republicans in the senate are saying, well, yeah, maybe those military bases, maybe thats not such a good that wasnt such a good idea after all. There is a Tipping Point here that we werent at even a year ago. Absolutely. We werent at the summer 2015, one so much of this began after the charleston massacre. Back then, it was about taking the Confederate Flag down and a few monuments were under duress. Now, its everything confederate. Its everything confederate. Or brands yeah, well, this is, you know, every moment like this, every Tipping Point has access. It is, its going to have accesses and you know, everybody is mourning right now. How could you take down a grand statue . You know, he was the read that slave, and so on, and so on. He saved the union okay, right, there are going to be excesses, we have to people to stand up, you know, and say, you know what . Toppling that one thats wrong. Thats wrong. Right. Topple that one . Yeah, okay. I am with you. 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. All three of us have talked about this. But there is not an inevitable slippery slope. This is a ridiculous argument. And then, 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. The criteria, there is lots of them. The one that i have always given in distinguishing the confederates from the founders is that the funders created the country, and the confederates tried to destroy the country. I think thats a pretty good bright line rule. 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. African child slavery,. The inferiority they specifically repudiated jefferson and that the declaration of independence. Alexander stephens did. So, we could do without them. The founders are different because they found a the country. 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 our 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. You have jefferson. You have washington. You mention that they bought and sold people. You mention those kinds of things, the good with the bad. We are, to my mind, stock with these 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 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 about the negative things automatically outweigh those. Lets talk about both of them. 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. If we could help the public focus their mind on just what the confederacy was, it was an insurgent revolution to create a slave holdersrepublic. 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] yeah it is really important to understand that. It only lasted four years. 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 they were the vessel of the American Revolution, resisting centralized authority, that was the central tenant of the lost cause. A lot of people believe that, but they never quote stevens. 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 a new society. We cannot take the cornerstone speech, we cant take the constitution or the secession, we cant do anything with that and continue in peace in this country. Or jefferson daviss 1200 page memoir. Yes. On every page it defends the existence of slavery because africans were savages. But here is a quick question ok. We are living in a moment right now where 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. 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 had shawn here today. I think he is watching. I think he should be here. It protected slavery, but it also and these 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. 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 issues over the statues in the capitol. It is easy to identify 11 or 12. I got into an argument with the reporter of whether it is 11 or 12, theres also father sarah. And he never dawned a confederate uniform, he never took up arms against anyth