Latest news with #ConfederateMemorial
The Independent
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Confederate monument being restored on Hegseth's anti-woke quest will cost $10M, military says
A U.S. Army official revealed Wednesday that the restoration of a Confederate memorial at Arlington National Cemetery is set to cost about $10 million over two years. The official added that the monument would include panels that would share the context of the history behind the memorial, which will be refurbished and its base replaced. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the return of the monument on social media on Tuesday evening. 'I'm proud to announce that Moses Ezekiel's beautiful and historic sculpture — often referred to as 'The Reconciliation Monument' — will be rightfully ... returned to Arlington National Cemetery near his burial site,' Hegseth wrote on X. 'It never should have been taken down by woke lemmings. Unlike the Left, we don't believe in erasing American history—we honor it.' This comes less than two years after it was taken down following the recommendation of an independent commission. The monument, which was put up in 1914, was created by Ezekiel, a sculptor and Confederate veteran. The monument includes a classical female figure, which represents the South, along with sanitized depictions of slavery. The commission, mandated by Congress, stated in 2022 that the memorial, as well as a number of other military assets referencing the Confederacy, should be removed or renamed. The commission vice chair, retired Army Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule, said the group thought the memorial to be "problematic from top to bottom." In addition to the sanitized depictions of slavery, the monument also featured a Latin phrase stating that the South's secession from the Union was a worthy 'lost cause.' The false interpretation of the reasons behind the outbreak of the Civil War suggests that it was a conflict about the power of the federal government rather than slavery. Hegseth has gone to great lengths to go against the recommendations of the commission by changing back the names of several Army bases to their names with connections to the Confederacy, by highlighting different people. After the recommendations by the commission, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, named after Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg, was renamed Fort Liberty. Hegseth changed it back to Fort Bragg in February, but by honoring Army Pfc. Roland Bragg who received a Silver Star and Purple Heart for his courage during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. President Donald Trump issued an executive order in March entitled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,' which pushed back against efforts to reinterpret U.S. history. "Rather than fostering unity and a deeper understanding of our shared past, the widespread effort to rewrite history deepens societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame,' it said. The order claimed that the Smithsonian museums had "come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.' It also ordered the Interior Department to reinstate statues and displays that had been "removed or changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology." In the same vein, the National Park Service announced Monday that it would return the statue of Confederate brigadier General Albert Pike to its previous position in Judiciary Square in the nation's capital after it was pulled down amid Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
Washington Post
4 days ago
- Politics
- Washington Post
Confederate memorial will be returned to Arlington Cemetery, Hegseth says
A Confederate memorial removed from Arlington National Cemetery in 2023 will be reinstalled, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Tuesday. The sculpture had been removed as part of a congressionally mandated effort to rid military bases and sites of Confederate names and images. The decision is the latest in a series of moves by President Trump's administration to restore Confederate names and symbols that had been discarded as part of the nation's racial reconciliation efforts following George Floyd's murder in 2020. 'I'm proud to announce that Moses Ezekiel's beautiful and historic sculpture — often referred to as 'The Reconciliation Monument' — will be rightfully be returned to Arlington National Cemetery near his burial site,' Hegseth posted on X, referring to the memorial's creator. 'It never should have been taken down by woke lemmings. Unlike the Left, we don't believe in erasing American history — we honor it.' The 32-foot bronze statue commissioned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy was unveiled at a ceremony presided over by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914, almost 50 years after the Civil War ended. Its supporters said it was dedicated in part to promote reconciliation between the North and the South. But critics said the memorial glorified the Southern cause and glossed over slavery, with elements such as a frieze showing an enslaved Black man following his owner and an enslaved woman — described on the cemetery's website as a 'mammy' — holding the baby of a Confederate officer. The sculpture was removed from Arlington in December 2023 after Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin arranged for the Virginia Military Institute, the nation's oldest state-supported military college, to take custody of it. In a statement Wednesday, Youngkin said the statue will return to Arlington in 2027 after a full refurbishment. 'We are grateful for the care being taken to preserve and display this statue, which allows us to better understand the complex history of the United States,' he said. Hegseth's announcement that the Confederate memorial would return to Arlington came a day after the National Park Service said a statue of Confederate brigadier general Albert Pike, torn down and set on fire by protesters in 2020, would return to its original site in Washington D.C. a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol. In March, Trump issued an executive order 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History' that included a section saying the administration would 'determine whether, since January 1, 2020, public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties within the Department of the Interior's jurisdiction have been removed or changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology.' It said it would take action to reinstate those monuments, memorials and statues. The Confederate Memorial's removal from Arlington was ordered by the bipartisan Naming Commission, which was established by Congress in 2021 and prompted in part by the calls for racial justice following George Floyd's murder. The commission was tasked with removing vestiges of the Confederacy from the military and recommending names that reflect the nation's diversity. 'The idea of putting that monument back up is just wrong,' Ty Seidule, a retired U.S. Army brigadier general who served as vice chair on the commission, said on Wednesday. 'This is not some woke thing, it's the will of the American people that Secretary Hegseth is going against.' The monument, Seidule said, 'is the cruelest I've ever seen because it's a pro-slavery, pro-segregation, anti-United States monument. It's not a reconciliation monument. It's a Confederate monument and it's meant to say that the white South was right and the United States of America was wrong.' In its decision recommending the Confederate Memorial at Arlington for removal, the commission cited imagery on the memorial and an accompanying Latin phrase celebrating the Lost Cause retelling of the Confederacy. 'This narrative of the Lost Cause, which romanticized the pre-Civil War South and denied the horrors of slavery, fueled White backlash against Reconstruction and the rights that the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments (1865-1870) had granted to African Americans,' the commission wrote. 'This was a memorial to men who committed treason in defense of the supposed right of some humans to 'own' other humans as property,' James Grossman, former executive director of the American Historical Association, told The Washington Post on the day the sculpture was removed from Arlington National Cemetery. 'The very idea that this monument was still here until today reminds us not just how far we've come but how much further we have to go.' In addition to recommending the removal of the Confederate memorial, the naming commission also identified nine army bases for name changes, including Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Pickett in Virginia, Fort Benning in Georgia and Fort Hood in Texas. The names of the bases, which all honored Confederate leaders including some who owned slaves, were changed in 2023. But earlier this year Hegseth announced they would revert to their previous names, though they would not honor their previous namesakes. The Defense Department renamed the bases for individuals who had served in the military and had the same last name as the Confederates for whom the bases were originally named. 'This is something we've been proud to do,' Hegseth told senators at a hearing in June, 'something that's important for the morale of the Army.'
Associated Press
5 days ago
- Politics
- Associated Press
Restoration of torn-down Confederate monument will cost $10 million over 2 years, military says
ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — Restoring a memorial to the Confederacy that was removed from Arlington National Cemetery at the recommendation of Congress will cost roughly $10 million total, a U.S. Army official said Wednesday — the latest development in a Trump administration effort to combat what it calls 'erasing American history.' Once back in the cemetery, the monument — described a few years ago as 'problematic from top to bottom' — will also feature panels nearby that will offer context about its history, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity about a project still in progress. The Pentagon expects it to take about two years to restore the monument to its original site, the official told The Associated Press. The base that it sat on needs to be replaced and the monument itself will be refurbished as well. On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the Pentagon would reinstall the memorial at Arlington — an expanse just outside Washington that once contained the land of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee — less than two years after it was removed on the recommendation of an independent commission. On social media Tuesday, Hegseth said the Arlington statue 'never should have been taken down by woke lemmings. Unlike the Left, we don't believe in erasing American history — we honor it.' It was erected more than a century ago The Confederate monument, erected in 1914, was the creation of sculptor and Confederate veteran Moses Ezekiel. It features a classical female figure, crowned with olive leaves, representing the American South, alongside sanitized depictions of slavery. In 2022, a congressionally mandated commission recommended that the memorial, along with scores of other military assets that bore Confederate references, be either removed or renamed. Retired Army Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule, the vice chair of the commission, said that the group found that Ezekiel's memorial was 'problematic from top to bottom.' Arlington National Cemetery's page on the memorial noted that aside from the sanitized depictions of enslaved people, the statue featured a Latin phrase that equated the South's secession to a noble 'lost cause.' That's a false interpretation of the Civil War that glorifies the conflict as a struggle over the power of the federal government and not the institution of slavery. Hegseth has made a point of circumventing the will of the commission several times now by reverting the names of several Army bases back to their original, Confederate-linked names, though by honoring different figures. For example, following the recommendations of the commission, officials renamed Fort Bragg, a name that honored Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg, a slave owner who lost several key Civil War battles, to Fort Liberty. In February, Hegseth reverted the name back to Fort Bragg but honoring Army Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, a World War II soldier who earned a Silver Star and Purple Heart for exceptional courage during the Battle of the Bulge. The effort is part of a larger Trump initiative In March, President Donald Trump issued an executive order entitled 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.' It decried efforts to reinterpret American history, stating, 'rather than fostering unity and a deeper understanding of our shared past, the widespread effort to rewrite history deepens societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame.' The order targeted the Smithsonian network of museums as having 'come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.' It also instructed the Interior Department to restore any statue or display that was 'removed or changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology.' This has been an active week when it comes to the dispute over how American history and culture are portrayed. On Monday, the National Park Service announced that the statue of Albert Pike, a Confederate brigadier general and a revered figure among Freemasons, would resume its previous position in Washington's Judiciary Square, a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol. It was the only outdoor statue of a Confederate military leader in the nation's capital. And late last week, the Smithsonian Museum of American History announced that it would revert an exhibit on the presidency to the 2008 era, eliminating any mention of the two Trump impeachments. After that move sparked discussion about how history is portrayed by government-backed institutions, the Smithsonian said it had come under no pressure from the White House and had been planning all along to update that part of the exhibit, which it said was temporary, to 2025 specifications.
