Nancy Pelosi on Thursday ordered the removal of four portraits of former House speakers who also served as Confederate leaders, saying the U.S. Capitol must be purged of racism.
“There’s no room in the hallowed halls in this democracy, this temple of democracy, to memorialize people who embody violent bigotry and grotesque racism of the Confederacy,” Pelosi told reporters. “We must lead by example.”
Pelosi, the current Speaker and a California Democrat, reportedly will join the House clerk to take down the paintings on Thursday afternoon, a day before “Juneteenth,” the anniversary of the date the last black slaves in the South learned they were free.
- The “canceled” leaders were: Robert Hunter of Virginia, Howell Cobb of Georgia, James Orr of South Carolina and Charles Crisp of Georgia.
Despite her clear commitment to symbolically reckoning with “systemic racism,” Pelosi did not mention in her remarks that all four Confederate men had helmed her own party.
- Southern Democrats as a group led the defense of slavery and the Confederacy’s attemp to secede from the Union ahead of the Civil War.
Pelosi’s unilateral move against the statues came a day after her failed effort to have almost a dozen statues of Confederate figures removed from the Capitol.
- The statues come from the states, though, and Congress does not have veto power over their choices under current law.
- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said last Thursday that he would continue to defer to the states regarding the statues.
Across the United States, Democrats and liberal activists have made a renewed push to eradicate Confederate symbolism amid weeks of anti-racism demonstrations over the May 25 death of George Floyd, a black man, in Minneapolis police custody.
- Protesters in dozens of cities have torn down statues of U.S. historical figures, including non-Confederates like Thomas Jefferson and Christopher Columbus.
Congressional Democrats launched a similar campaign against the Capitol statues in 2017 during another nationwide binge of monument destruction, which was spurred by the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
While liberal commentators have been largely united in favor of toppling Confederate statues, conservatives have been at odds over the issue.
- A Morning Consult poll conducted earlier this month found 71 percent of Republicans want the statues to remain standing, and 53 percent of Democrats want them to come down.
