Americans resist Pentagon’s directive to remove significant Confederate memorial.
Americans Rally to Preserve Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery
At a public comment session on Wednesday evening, Americans passionately voiced their opposition to Arlington National Cemetery’s plans to remove the Confederate Memorial. The memorial, which has long been a symbol of unity and reconciliation, is now facing dismantling after a congressionally mandated study deemed it problematic.
The Army sought feedback from the public as part of the legal process to determine the memorial’s historic significance and the best approach for its removal. During the three-hour session, numerous respondents, including veterans with both Union and Confederate heritage, made compelling arguments for preserving the memorial. They highlighted its artistic value and its role in representing restoration.
How you can tell Arlington National Cemetery what you think about removing the Confederate Memorial https://t.co/yu58bsuurt#FreeDixie #DeoVindice #FJB pic.twitter.com/DAGZ1Zn6l4
— Dixie Drudge – Southern Nation News (@CptPeeWee) August 17, 2023
In 2021, Congress established the Naming Commission with the task of identifying and removing names, bases, and other Department of Defense assets honoring the Confederate States of America or individuals who voluntarily served for the Confederacy.
The Pentagon’s final report recommended removing the bronze upper portion of the memorial while leaving the granite base intact to avoid disturbing graves. However, commenters argued that the memorial’s purpose is not to honor the Confederacy but to commemorate the movement towards reunification after the Union’s victory.
Concerns were raised about the precedent set by dismantling the memorial, with one commenter describing it as the “paradox of destruction of a monument to peace, harmony, and reconciliation.” However, others disagreed, stating that there should be no memorials to those who took up arms against the United States.
The memorial, commissioned by former President William McKinley in 1898, was designed to foster healing from the Civil War. It allowed for the reinterment of over 400 Confederate veterans in graves forming concentric circles around the memorial. The memorial’s webpage acknowledges that it presents a nostalgic and mythologized vision of the Confederacy, including sanitized depictions of slavery.
The memorial features a statue of a woman representing the “American South,” surrounded by shields representing the Confederate states and border states. The pedestal includes engravings of 32 figures, including two slaves, and an inscription that pays tribute to the idea of the Southern states’ war as a “lost cause.”
Arlington Cemetery sought alternatives to the memorial’s removal but instructed commenters not to call for no action. Many commenters argued that removing the memorial would be both illegal and disrespectful to those buried at Arlington. Some even raised accusations of antisemitism against the memorial’s designer, Moses Ezekiel, a Jewish-American Confederate veteran.
One participant, Jennifer London, summed up the sentiment by saying, “We should memorialize the country we are today by reflecting this reality and leave the monuments of the past to tell the story of the past following the Civil War.”
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The post Americans Fight Back Against Pentagon’s Order to Remove Prominent Confederate Memorial appeared first on The Western Journal.
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