Monuments in the News

Captain Gray Statue, Garibaldi


Oregon Statues & Monuments

“Oregon Experience: Searching for York” paints a portrait of York, William Clark’s slave who joined him on the Lewis & Clark Expedition, as it discusses the ways in which history is written. OPB 8-5-10 (30 min video)

Un/Inclusive Oregon

Foden-Vencil, Is it time to replace ‘Oregon, My Oregon’ with a state song that includes all Oregonians? The song celebrates roses, sunshine and Oregon's racist beginnings. OPB Feb. 22, 2021

 

Oregon's Black Pioneers.  OPB Jan 31, 1919

International Monuments

statue
Cecil Rhodes, Oxford

The ignorance that underpinned empire and slavery still has staunch defenders. The Guardian 5-3-21

"It’s not the ‘woke’ who want to erase the past, but those who are determined that it should never be examined."

National Monument Action

When Monuments Go Bad

The Chicago Monuments Project is leading a city-wide dialogue in search of ways to resolve its landscape of problematic statues, and make room for a new, different kind of public memorial.

Zach Mortice, Bloombeg CityLab June 8, 2021

 

"No other American city has opened up this sort of wide-ranging dialogue about how cities make monuments."

"The committee is looking at six criteria, though individual monuments aren’t connected to specific factors.

  • Promoting narratives of white supremacy
  • Presenting inaccurate and/or demeaning characterizations of American Indians
  • Memorializing individuals with connections to racist acts, slavery and genocide
  • Presenting selective, oversimplified, one-sided views of history
  • Not sufficiently including other stories, in particular those of women, people of color, and themes of labor, migration and community building
  • Creating tension between people who see value in these artworks and those who do not."

Town's Statue Of Colonial Woman Who Killed Natives Sparks Debate.  NPR May 1, 2021 (3 min)

"Barbara Cutter, a professor of history at the University of Northern Iowa, argues that when considering what to do with the Duston statues, people shouldn't focus too much on what may or may not have happened in 1697.

"I think it's really more important to think about what people meant when they supported putting up this statue," she says. "And it wasn't about [Duston]. It was about an effort to hide the violence of colonization and imperialism.""

How we should judge Hannah Duston is the wrong question, Cutter says. Instead, we should ask ourselves how we choose whom to memorialize and what stories we are trying to tell.

Over 160 Confederate Symbols Removed in 2020.

The Whose Heritage? report by the Southern Poverty Law Center found that 168 Confederate symbols were renamed or removed from public spaces in 2020.

See their Whose Heritage? Community Action Guide

 

UVA Initiative Looks At Our Relationship With Statues And Memorials. NPR news, April 17, 2021

University of Virginia has launched The Memory Project, an initiative to explore politics and inclusion in how public spaces are used to commemorate the past. NPR's Debbie Elliott talks with director Jalane Schmidt. (4-min audio+text)

Portrait of George Floyd, Chicago Ave Fire Arts Ctr
Portrait of George Floyd, Chicago Ave Fire Arts Ctr

George Floyd Square: An emergent monument?

 

The Intersection Where George Floyd Died Has Become a Strange, Sacred Place. Janelle Ross, Time April 16, 2021

Statue Removal: Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart in Richmond, VA. NPR 02/23/2021
Statue Removal: Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart in Richmond, VA. NPR 02/23/2021