Speaker 1: The deadly violence in Charlottesville over the proposed removal of
Speaker 1: a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee has ramped
Speaker 1: up a debate over Confederate monuments that has been underway
Speaker 1: since Dylan Rufe killed nine Blacks in a Charleston church.
Speaker 1: In some public officials are trying to prevent future violence
Speaker 1: over Confederate symbols, so under the cover of darkness for
Speaker 1: instant a statue of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson
Speaker 1: was removed from Baltimore's Wyman Park. But it's not quite
Speaker 1: so easy in other states, where there are laws in
Speaker 1: place banning the removal of the monuments or make it
Speaker 1: very difficult to do so. Alabama has such a law,
Speaker 1: and its Attorney general is suing the city of Birmingham
Speaker 1: after the mayor ordered a Confederate monument to be covered
Speaker 1: to send a message to white supremacist. Mayor William Bell
Speaker 1: says he's not against leaving the statue there, but he
Speaker 1: wants to put it in some context. How can we
Speaker 1: tell the full story of what the Confederates represented, so
Speaker 1: that if the monument is maintained there, that people will
Speaker 1: know what the full impact of what it represents joining
Speaker 1: me is Alfred Brophy, professor at the University of Alabama
Speaker 1: Law School. Alfred, how many states about are there that
Speaker 1: have laws protecting Confederate monuments and how do those laws vary?
Speaker 1: About six of them. They started with South Carolina back
Speaker 1: in two thousand when there was a movement to take
Speaker 1: the Confederate flag off the dome of the capital in
Speaker 1: South Carolina. South Carolina sort of got that started. Then
Speaker 1: Georgia followed shortly, and now we've got North Carolina which
Speaker 1: passed one about a year and a half ago. Tennessee, UM, Virginia, Alabama. UM,
Speaker 1: that's so. And and what they do is they say,
Speaker 1: UM that you cannot remove a monument, and it's largely
Speaker 1: to UM. Oftentimes they're defined as sort of war monuments
Speaker 1: UM from public property without either the permission of the
Speaker 1: legislature or the state historical commission. There's their minor variances
Speaker 1: between those, but that's that's essentially the the You know,
Speaker 1: if it's on public property and it's a memorial, you
Speaker 1: need the permission of a state agency to remove it.
Speaker 1: So in a study in the Southern Poverty Law Center
Speaker 1: identified about Confederate place names and other symbols in public
Speaker 1: spaces across the nation. They're also symbols marking graves in cemeteries.
Speaker 1: Explain the debate briefly of leaving them there and removing them. Sure,
Speaker 1: so the case for removing them is that um, you know,
Speaker 1: particularly Confederate monuments in public spaces, UM are reminders of
Speaker 1: the era of white supremacy. Their their monuments to white supremacy.
Speaker 1: They honor um, Confederate um, the fight for to maintain
Speaker 1: in slavery, and they should be removed. The case against
Speaker 1: removing them is they're sort of part of the landscape.
Speaker 1: They're reminders of the past. They're part of our history,
Speaker 1: and we shouldn't be taking them down, but we should
Speaker 1: be perhaps adding some context. As Birmingham's mayor was suggesting, now,
Speaker 1: what's the best way to do this. The mayor of
Speaker 1: Dallas is forming a task force to discuss the city's monuments.
Speaker 1: Some governors want to move ahead to to do something,
Speaker 1: but they don't have the authority. For example, Virginia's governor,
Speaker 1: what's the best way to approach this? So if if
Speaker 1: it's you're in one of these states that has a
Speaker 1: history of Monument Preservation Act you're gonna either have to
Speaker 1: go through the state agency in charge of this or
Speaker 1: the legislature to get it repealed, or you know, people
Speaker 1: might take action independently and just you know, hope that
Speaker 1: this isn't challenged by the state. A g um that's
Speaker 1: happened in North Carolina where some building a building was
Speaker 1: renamed about a year ago on public property and nobody
Speaker 1: ever challenged it. So, you know, sort of it's a
Speaker 1: technical violation of North Carolina's monument law, but nobody cares,
Speaker 1: or the people who can challenge it, you know, don't care. Um.
Speaker 1: I think these things should be you know, largely local decisions.
Speaker 1: The people in the community who have to live with
Speaker 1: the monuments, I think, you know, should be in charge
Speaker 1: of deciding what they do. I personally think it's generally
Speaker 1: a bad idea to take monuments down. I think they're
Speaker 1: you know, important lessons and markers about our history. But UM,
Speaker 1: I understand completely the idea that um, you know, for
Speaker 1: many there are there, uh, you know, a sore spot,
Speaker 1: and the I think the local community by and large
Speaker 1: should make that decision. It's a it's a question for
Speaker 1: many more of morality than of law. What about moving
Speaker 1: them to a museum or some kind of museum setting. Sure,
Speaker 1: so a lot of people who say we should contextualize
Speaker 1: UM also say, you know, the extent that we move these,
Speaker 1: you should move it to a museum. A lot of
Speaker 1: times they get moved to cemeteries quite frankly, which you're
Speaker 1: usually private property. UM. The UM. I think it's a
Speaker 1: good idea to keep them up in place, because that
Speaker 1: gives you a sense of the what the landscape originally was.
Speaker 1: It shows you that once there were people in charge
Speaker 1: who you know, thought it was a good idea to
Speaker 1: memorialize the era of slavery and civil war or fought
Speaker 1: to protect slavery. UM. But I think monuments, I think
Speaker 1: museum moving to museums or you know, a good halfway
Speaker 1: point rather than just take it down. You know, you
Speaker 1: can try and and you know, preserve that memory and
Speaker 1: the context. UM. And certainly if you're gonna leave monuments
Speaker 1: up or move them to museums, you need a lot
Speaker 1: of contextualization right to to UM tell people why these
Speaker 1: monuments were put up, why they were moved, what then
Speaker 1: meant at the time, what they mean today. Those sorts
Speaker 1: of things. Something that stands out to me is that
Speaker 1: is the state of Mississippi's flag, which has the Confederate
Speaker 1: emblem on it. Has there been an uproar about that
Speaker 1: in anyway? There there has been you I'm sure you
Speaker 1: followed them, you know, controversy over the removal of the
Speaker 1: Confederate flag battle flag from the South Carolina's first state
Speaker 1: House and then the state House grounds. I think that
Speaker 1: flags present a somewhat different issue from monuments. Monuments, once
Speaker 1: they're put up, um, you know, sort of will be
Speaker 1: will be there for a long time. Flags if you
Speaker 1: don't put a new flag up on a regular basis,
Speaker 1: the flag um wears out. And so, you know, Confederate
Speaker 1: symbols on flags, most of which I think we're added,
Speaker 1: you know during the Civil rights here in a sort
Speaker 1: of response to the Civil rights movement, are a much
Speaker 1: easier case to take them down into to alter them.
Speaker 1: They don't have the same historical basis um that that
Speaker 1: some of these older Confederate monuments have. In about thirty seconds,
Speaker 1: this is tough. But does it strike you as uh
Speaker 1: strange that this is coming up so many years after
Speaker 1: the Civil War. Yeah, it's interesting, it's fascinating why this
Speaker 1: is coming up at this moment, I think it's UM,
Speaker 1: you know, yet another front on the culture wars about
Speaker 1: how we think about American history. Obviously a lot of
Speaker 1: this was also inspired by the tragedy the of his
Speaker 1: shooting in Charleston, UM and then sort of that. I
Speaker 1: think one event dramatically changed how the public was thinking
Speaker 1: about UM, Confederate flags and Confederate symbols. Well, thank you
Speaker 1: for joining us. I hope you'll join us again. That's
Speaker 1: Professor Alfred Brophy. He is at the University of Alabama
Speaker 1: School of Law.