WEBVTT - How Removing Public Monuments Work 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.600 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from House Stuff Works 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:13.840 dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:16.919 and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there. 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:24.160 So this is Stuff you Should Know Controversy Edition. Yeah. Sure, 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:26.279 there will be some of that in here, for sure. 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:30.200 But I also think it's important when we're talking about 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:38.760 removing public monuments that it's not all about Confederate monuments. No. Actually, 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:41.720 I'm glad you said that, because that actually brings up 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:45.159 a pretty good intro. There's some monuments in New York City, 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:49.680 New York City, New York City. Um. Yeah, that was 0:00:49.840 --> 0:00:53.520 such a great commercial, wasn't it. And it's endured. Um. 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:57.240 There's four of them actually that are being targeted for 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:04.360 removal by UM activists. Baldy no all. The Columbus is 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:08.240 one of them. I believe that the Columbus statue in 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:11.319 Columbus Circle one of Teddy Roosevelt. I think it's at 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:15.520 the Museum of Natural History. Interesting, and um, I was like, 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:18.080 what's wrong with this one? It's from Teddy Roosevelt. And 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:20.600 then if you go and look at the statue in 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:23.039 this context, you're like, yeah, Okay, I can kind of 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:27.600 see that one. He's like valiantly astride this horse, and 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:32.160 this African tribesman and this Native American chief are down 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:34.880 on the ground on either side of him, like he's 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:37.800 just in charge of the show, right, So I can 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:40.720 kind of see that one. There's another one of a 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:45.280 guy named J. M. Sims I believe is his name. 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:49.160 He's known as the father of guy in ecology. He 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:51.080 I don't know why I laughed at that. I just 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:56.760 I guess I'll just go ahead. So his that's why 0:01:56.800 --> 0:02:00.120 he had a statute. So it's just him, just him 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:04.320 with a giant volva right behind him. It's just him, 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:08.160 like you know, a normal statue honoring a man and um. 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:11.200 The problem is is that although he's the father of 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:14.600 gyne incology, he was also known in the first half 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:19.280 of the nineteenth century to carry out like um experimental 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:25.760 surgery on slave women with like zero anesthesia, obviously without consent, 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:30.440 and he's been compared to Joseph Mangel It basically it's 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:34.080 just this mad scientist with zero regard for human life. 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:36.560 And you might say, well, this is the first half 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:39.000 of the nineteenth century, but some people argue that even 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:42.200 at the time what he was doing would have been 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:46.639 considered by his contemporaries as as unethical. Well, and as 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:50.040 you will see as we go through this, uh so, 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:55.840 much of the conversation around this controversy is, Um, do 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:57.320 we look at it through the lens of when it 0:02:57.400 --> 0:02:59.600 was put up, why it was put up, who it 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:02.160 was put up by? Or do we look at it 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:05.920 do lens of Hey, it's do we still need to 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:09.720 honor someone now who we know did monstrous things? Yeah, 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:12.359 those are all really great questions. Or should we leave 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:15.840 it up as a cautionary tale is another argument? And 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:19.680 we're gonna wait into all these waters. So the reason 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:22.160 that we're even talking about this and and the reason 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:26.880 why you can had you been around towns like Baltimore, 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:32.799 New Orleans, um, Helena, Montana in the summer of two 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:36.960 thousand seventeen, you would have seen Confederate statues being removed, 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:41.000 uh sometimes in the dead of night. Um. The whole 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:43.240 reason all of this started was actually back in two 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:48.520 thousand and fifteen when the the was it the Columbia. 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:51.560 It was Columbia, South Carolina. It wasn't Charleston, right, it 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:55.760 was Charleston. The church. Yeah, the church shooter, the Charleston 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:59.280 church massacre where nine people died by an a bowed 0:03:59.320 --> 0:04:03.200 white suprema assist right, really started up this idea that 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:05.840 and I think it woke a lot of you know, 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:10.040 the establishment up to the idea that there's all this 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:14.960 iconography all around the country that a pretty large section 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:18.479 of people have a real issue with and that everybody 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:22.920 has just totally ignored their their problems with it for decades. Right. 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:25.280 That really kind of woke a lot of people up. 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:27.640 And it got a lot of city councils around the 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:32.160 country reevaluating why they had these things up still was 0:04:32.200 --> 0:04:34.080 it worth just taking down? And a lot of them 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:37.599 did take some stuff down, right. And then in the 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:40.720 summer of two thousand seventeen, I think it was, was 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:45.440 it May or August? Um was it August, the Charlottesville 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:48.400 rally was held. I can't remember the month, but but 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:51.040 it was. It was two thousand seventeen. The hotter months 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:53.320 of two thousand seventeen, there was a there was a 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:57.040 white supremacist rally in favor of the Roberty Lee statue 0:04:57.120 --> 0:05:01.640 that was marked to be It was it was controversial 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:05.960 the statue of Roberty Lee from Charlottesville UM and people 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:09.200 have been talking about taking it down. So white supremacists 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:14.919 met to support the statue. Counter protests UM were met 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:18.479 the white supremacists and violence broke out. One woman died 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:24.279 UM and it was just a bad scene that created 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:27.320 even more like a second wave of people looking at 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:30.080 these statues and said, Okay, not only are these possibly 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:37.320 like creating an unfriendly public environment for people like whole 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:40.440 swaths of people that are Americans here in the United States, 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:44.000 but they can also serve as flashpoints for violence, and 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:47.520 we should really rethink these. And by the time the 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:53.400 second wave happened, state legislatures around the country, especially in 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:55.520 the South, had intervened between the first wave and the 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:59.560 second wave and started passing UM legislation that said, you 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:03.280 can't move public monuments, especially ones that are dedicated to 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:07.680 UM war heroes, wars that have been around for like 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:11.440 forty years or more, basically putting an end to the 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:15.800 easy removal of Confederate monuments around the country. And so 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:19.760 all this is done is created this huge conflict. Well 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:21.880 it was already a conflict one way or the other, 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:25.880 but this the the the conflict is is now both 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:28.960 sides are just butting up against each other. And you know, 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:32.039 when you push two masses together, they tend to go upward. 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:36.680 And and that's basically what's happening right now. Lava is 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:40.400 going upward here in the United States as tensions are rising, 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:44.120 and it has never been more tense in my lifetime 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:46.799 and probably your lifetime as well, Chuck, which are virtually 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:49.440 the same thing. But that's where we stand right now 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:53.160 in January of two thousand and eighteen. Right, Uh, can 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:55.800 we cover some history here though? Yeah, let's all right, 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:58.200 So this is nothing new though, Um, as far as 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:02.760 just taking down public monuments, the world since the beginning 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:06.479 of time has erected monuments and then eventually had someone 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:10.280 that wants to take down that monument um right here 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:13.240 in America when we one of the first things we 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:16.480 did when the Revolutionary War kicked off was said, Hey, 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:19.000 let's go down to the King George the Third Statue 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:23.000 in Manhattan and let's pull that thing down. Uh. In 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:27.920 on July six we just heard the Declaration of Independence 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:31.280 for the first time and we got them. Yeah, and 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:33.760 let's take down that statue. And you know what, let's 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:37.120 not only do that, let's melt down that thing into 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:42.000 forty plus thousand bullets to fire upon them with. Yeah, 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:46.040 that's pretty sweet. It's pretty pretty ironic. You know. He said, 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:50.160 here's some King George for you red coat. I think 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:53.440 that's what they said. Uh. And this, this goes well 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:58.400 well beyond that. Of course, um Spanish raised Aztec and 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:03.240 other temples in the America's so Catholic cathedrals could be built. 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:09.120 Like basically someone would would take over, tear down those statues, 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:12.160 put up their own. Then someone else would come along 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:15.840 tear down those statues. And you know it wouldn't always 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:18.520 a lot of times it was a good thing, So 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:21.920 you would have like in in Hungary in ninety he 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:26.600 had the Hungarian uprising against the Soviets and they storm 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:30.680 Budapest and tore down a statue of Stalin. Stalin had 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:32.880 quite a few, and Lenin quite a few statues of 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:37.920 themselves the years. Yeah, wherever communism spread, if there was 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:43.040 like a communist backed regime or country, or even just 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:46.880 a non backed communist polarized country, you could probably find 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:49.600 a statue of at least Lenin, if not Stalin two 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:53.160 in this country, even like places like Ethiopia had them. Right, 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:57.520 And so when there's an invading army or a revolution 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:00.880 or a regime change. This is usually when you see 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:04.760 a statue torn down. It's a symbolic gesture, sure it 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:08.800 it is, and and it's almost like not it's but 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:11.319 it's also like a part of the healing process that 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:14.800 seems like too, or at least the transition process, let's 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:18.280 call it that. Right. Yeah, Then there's another there's another 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:22.320 type of situation where statues tend to get torn down, 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:25.640 and that's when there's like a cultural shift. And that's 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:28.559 kind of what we're seeing now in with this um 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:32.640 with the Confederate monument controversies, right, and what you've also 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:35.960 seen in the two thousands in Latin America where in 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:40.400 places like Venezuela, statues of Columbus started to come down 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:46.439 and replaced with things like uh indigenous chiefs who once 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:50.640 tried to fight off people like Columbus. Yeah, Gouai kai Porto, Yeah, 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:54.040 which is a that's a full shift from not only 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:56.800 are we gonna not walk by this Columbus statue every 0:09:56.880 --> 0:09:59.120 day now that we know we know, but we're gonna 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:01.000 put up a statue of people that try to defend 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:05.920 against him, right, right, So It's almost like they are 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:11.839 hundreds of years later throwing off the uh, the shackles 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:17.960 of imperialism, I guess, the stank of imperialism. Right. Should 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:21.079 we take a break? I'm pretty worked up? Yeah, yeah, 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:23.240 I feel like we need to go rub each other's 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:56.719 shoulders for a minute. All right, prepare for it, Josh, Okay, 0:10:56.800 --> 0:11:01.440 So the the place we find in ourselves right now? Well, 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:04.520 how about this, chuck? Why why are there any public 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:08.120 monuments anywhere anyway? Right? Look like, I think that's kind 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:09.840 of the core of this. We have to get to 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:14.760 what is really being talked about here, because it's if 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:18.080 it's just some statue or something like that, especially in 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:23.160 some places like far flung as Helena, Montana. Um. What 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:25.720 does the statue of the Confederacy have anything to do with? 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:29.640 What does any statue have anything to do with? Yeah? Well, 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:32.320 first of all, they're more than um according to Southern 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:37.400 Party Law Center, more than statues, flags, plaques, city names, 0:11:37.440 --> 0:11:41.680 county names, street names, and holidays uh named and even 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:46.000 military bases named after Confederate generals or dedicated somehow to 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:50.400 the American Confederacy. UM. And that includes everything from like 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:52.160 like you said, street names and flags and all that. 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:57.160 There's like, there's seven hundred statues and monuments just on 0:11:57.240 --> 0:12:02.120 public property UM in the so seven statues and monuments 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:05.479 and thirty two of those who have either been dedicated 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:10.360 or rededicated since two thousands, right, So what these these 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:14.640 range anywhere from uh Confederate Avenue over on the east 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:19.120 side of Atlanta, which is just a street name to um. 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:21.959 You drive through Atlanta and you see, if you pay attention, 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:26.880 you see Civil War battle plaques all over the place. 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:30.480 And these are I put these in a slightly different 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:34.800 category because they are literally just historical markers. Like they're 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:41.720 very neutral on this in this sonic parking lot, there 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:46.120 once was was a battle waged between this brigade and 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:49.440 this brigade on this date, and this is what happened here, 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:53.960 not even that. Sometimes it'll be like the the the 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:57.640 Confederate Army thought about making camp here but decided not to, 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:01.040 So they did a quarter mile east of this because 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:05.560 it's a little hilly, don't you think. Can you blame them? Yeah? 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:08.120 And those I put those in different category because those 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:12.560 are historical markers of where something happened. It's not saying 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:16.360 maybe some of them do, but it's not saying this 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:20.680 is where the proud sons of the eighteenth Brigade fought 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:25.480 off the evil Yanks in their bid to ensure slavery. Yeah, 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:29.280 that tends to be. You'll find those more unlike monuments 0:13:29.360 --> 0:13:35.679 or statues, especially ones that were bankrolled by private individuals 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:39.240 or private groups who were just one and the same 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:41.840 with the people who were running that that little town 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:45.000 at the time. Yeah, I mean all right, So that's 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:47.040 that's sort of the crux for me with this whole 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:53.680 thing is when, where, when, and why were these things 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:58.200 erected to begin with, and by whom and in many 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:05.160 many cases, uh, some private rich person paid for this 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:11.760 thing to be put up as a definitive screw you 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:14.680 to what was going on in the country at the time. 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:18.800 And it's very rarely has it just been like, hey, 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:20.560 you know what, we should just put up a statue 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:24.800 because we think Robert Lee is a great general um. 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:28.840 Time and time again, you see stories, for instance, Charlottesville, 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:32.040 that statue of Robert E. Lee. It was commissioned and 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:36.920 paid for by a wealthy individual named Paul Goodlow McIntyre 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:40.760 in nineteen seventeen, when he also bought the surrounding park 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:44.120 and said this is for whites only, and let's put 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:47.160 a statue of general lee Like, the context of how 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:51.480 that happened is key to me, right, and actually, Chuck, 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:54.320 that still goes on today. A lot of the monuments 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:59.920 that are erected to the Confederacy are erected through private funding, 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:04.320 private land, which makes them wholly out of reach of 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:07.800 any debate over whether they should be removed or not. 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:14.239 Because that, uh, that is covered by two very important 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:19.120 American rights, which is the right to free speech whether 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:23.000 people like it or not, and private property rights. You 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:27.000 put those two things together, something is basically untouchable. Yeah, 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:32.000 and and listen, we say all of this, uh, like, 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:33.840 I'm not really weighing in. I think people probably know 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:37.280 I feel let's be honest, Um, I'm not weighing in 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:38.720 here one way or the other. But we say all 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:42.400 that just to say that just because there is a statue, 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:47.240 uh that looks great and it was really expensive, um 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:50.760 in a in a town square, it doesn't mean that 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:56.440 it represented ever maybe or certainly now the um wants 0:15:56.600 --> 0:16:00.440 of the community at large. Sometimes it may have just 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:04.280 been a single individual that had enough sway and money 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:08.640 to say I'm at the statue. Yeah, you know what 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:11.440 I'm saying. So it's a very and I think who 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:14.600 wrote this was a Dave Ruce. He put it best. 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:17.200 He said, you know, what it represents is a very 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:22.720 narrow historical record. Right, especially at the time, it might 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:25.920 have really not represented a lot of people. It might 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:29.320 even in some cases it may more people may feel 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:33.280 represented by it now than they did at the time. Um. Apparently, 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:36.520 especially for some of these older ones, it was not 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:40.200 a normal thing to erect some sort of memorial to 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:44.400 the Confederacy immediately after the Civil War. Two for a 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:47.120 couple of reasons. One is that there are plenty of 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:51.120 Union veterans still around the country and they would not 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:53.400 have been very happy to have seen something like that. 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:57.000 And then secondly, the South was very, very poor for 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:00.760 decades after the war. Um it was. It was not 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:02.960 a wealthy place. There's not a lot of money running 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:08.480 around for towns to put together, um enough money to 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:14.120 erect a decent statue that would last for a hundred years. Um. 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:16.920 But like you said, though, by the time that they 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:22.280 did start to be erected, um there there there, it's 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:26.400 it coincided with some really important something very important, which 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:30.280 was the Jim Crow era. Yeah, either Jim Crow a 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:34.600 lot of them or the civil rights movement. Yeah, so 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:38.280 this it's not an accident. Now, the Southern Poverty Law 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:42.680 Center UM is a it's an organization that tracks hate groups. 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:45.160 And if you're a hate group, you probably don't put 0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:49.320 much stock into studies created by the Southern Poverty Law Center. 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:56.040 But um, the the SPLC did a study of Confederate markers, 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:59.960 monument statues, street names, all that stuff around the country 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:03.880 tree and they found that the vast majority of these 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:09.000 things were erected in like the Jim Crow era at 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:12.320 the from like say eight ninety till just after the 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:15.359 First World War. That that's when most of the statues 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:19.320 to the Confederacy and monuments were erected. And this is 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:26.320 a time when the South had gone through reconstruction, the 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:32.840 North had abandoned the reconstruction project. From what I understand, 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:35.520 I didn't realize this before, but basically there was this 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:40.159 period what was called a period of healing between the 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:43.600 North and the South, that the divisiveness between the two 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:48.879 areas grew so so deep that war broke out, and 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:52.159 then afterwards the hurt feelings started to subside enough that 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:55.560 there was this desire to to come back together to heal, 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:58.800 and the North and the South decided that they would 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:02.320 heal at the expense of the African Americans and they 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:05.440 would find common ground by saying, yeah, I think we 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:07.719 can find we can all agree that that whites are 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:11.119 the supreme race. And the African Americans, who had just 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:13.840 recently been freed in the South and we're carrying out reconstruction, 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:18.160 said wait what and um, this is the Jim Crow 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:20.800 era that kicked off the Jim Crow era, and this 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:23.879 was the time when these monuments started to be erected. 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:25.919 Like you said, it doesn't seem to have been much 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:29.080 of an accident the timing. And if you talk to 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:32.840 some historians, they say, Nos, no accident whatsoever. This was 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:37.879 white saying you might not be under by law under 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:41.720 white control any longer. But it's pretty plain and simple. 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:45.240 We've just directed a monument to remind you that about 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:47.679 white supremacy and that that's the law of the land. 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:50.600 Where's your statue and your monument. I don't see it anywhere, 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:53.359 So I guess we win. Yeah. I mean the Georgia 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:56.000 State flag controversy is the prime example I remember when 0:19:56.040 --> 0:20:00.200 that was happening on the early two thousand's. For those 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:04.520 of you don't know, the Georgia state flag, uh, from 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:08.679 nineteen fifty six to two thousand one, um was was 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:11.919 changed and had the the good old Confederate stars and 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:15.280 bars on the right hand right half of it. And 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:18.800 I remember at the time a lot of people saying, 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:22.399 you know, this is our history, this is uh, you 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:25.720 can't change our flag. You can't change our flag racing history. 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:28.879 And I think many of them may not even have 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:32.840 realized that that was not the original flag. They went 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:36.560 back to the original flag after two thousand one, but 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:39.399 they they threw those stars and bars on there in 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:42.520 nineteen fifty six. And what what was going on in 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:46.359 Atlanta in nineteen fifty six, you know, right the civil 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:50.200 rights Sarah de segregation or desegregation, I should say, yeah, 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:54.879 And it was just very plainly a middle finger to 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:59.080 desegregation and once again a reminder, we're gonna fly this 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:02.920 flag now that has the Confederate battle flag on it. 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:07.479 And in you know, fifty something years later in the 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:10.480 two thousand's, maybe a lot of people will forget that 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:13.120 this was not the original flag. And that's exactly what happened. Man, 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:17.199 it happened in aces too, So the that so the 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:20.760 SPLC study found the same found what you were saying 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:24.439 that there are basically two big and and there are 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:29.040 always Confederate monuments and statues being erected or streets being 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:32.160 named that, or flags going up. But there were two periods, 0:21:32.280 --> 0:21:35.119 the Jim Crow era in the Civil Rights era where 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:39.080 they really increased. And the fact that those those statues 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:43.320 and monuments really increased and coincided with these these times 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:50.320 of struggle for white supremacy um really provides a pretty 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:54.760 compelling case that those Confederate monuments and those rebel flags 0:21:54.760 --> 0:22:00.800 on those state houses are meant to express white supremacy. Yeah, 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:02.920 it's tough to it's tough to look at it any 0:22:02.920 --> 0:22:06.000 other way when you when you look at this timeline 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:10.600 like that, And that's what's that issue. You know, what 0:22:10.600 --> 0:22:15.800 what is the meaning of the Confederate flag on a 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:19.080 state house, What is the meaning of a Confederate monument 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:22.240 or statue in a town square? What is it ultimately 0:22:22.240 --> 0:22:25.640 trying to say? And that's that's really at the heart 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:28.760 of this controversy, is what are you trying to say 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:31.600 with that thing? What are we now, as the society 0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:35.880 in the small little town in Georgia, Alabama, or Louisiana wherever, 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:41.000 What are we saying by fighting over keeping this statue 0:22:41.320 --> 0:22:46.160 or this flag flying? What's what's what's the argument here? Well, yeah, 0:22:46.280 --> 0:22:50.080 people in favor of keeping them will say that it's uh, 0:22:50.560 --> 0:22:54.199 you know, it's dangerous to a race history. You're we 0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:57.440 can learn from these things. They can serve as reminders 0:22:57.440 --> 0:23:01.439 of how not to be maybe, Um. But at the 0:23:01.520 --> 0:23:05.120 very least, you can't erase history. So don't even try 0:23:05.119 --> 0:23:09.199 to erase history. Um. So that's basically the one of 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:14.159 the main arguments against taking these down, right, Just you 0:23:14.440 --> 0:23:17.560 can't whitewash history. You can erase history, right. So that's one. 0:23:18.080 --> 0:23:21.600 Another one is um and this is a big one. 0:23:21.640 --> 0:23:24.320 That's that's really kind of kept a lot of these 0:23:24.359 --> 0:23:30.560 things up so far, is that, Um, the Confederate monuments, 0:23:30.600 --> 0:23:34.560 the Confederate statutes, the Confederate flags are not meant as 0:23:34.560 --> 0:23:39.080 symbols of hatred or slavery or oppression. They are Um. 0:23:39.359 --> 0:23:43.000 You'll see people say that it's heritage, not hate, right, 0:23:43.200 --> 0:23:45.280 And what they mean with that is this thing called 0:23:45.320 --> 0:23:50.080 the lost Cause narrative. Right. So the Lost Cause narrative 0:23:50.960 --> 0:23:55.439 is this idea that um, well, actually I found that 0:23:55.480 --> 0:23:57.840 there's like six parts to it. All right, are you 0:23:57.920 --> 0:23:59.879 ready for these, because I'm gonna lay them out. So 0:24:00.040 --> 0:24:04.400 the Lost Causes basically this narrative that says that the 0:24:03.720 --> 0:24:07.879 the South, the Confederacy, the Civil War, none of it 0:24:07.960 --> 0:24:10.639 had to do with slavery, or if it did, it 0:24:10.720 --> 0:24:13.480 had very very little to do with slavery. That really 0:24:13.520 --> 0:24:16.360 the Civil War was the War of Northern aggression. There 0:24:16.400 --> 0:24:18.840 was the North that started it. The South just wanted 0:24:18.880 --> 0:24:21.840 to seceed from the North, just wanted to get away 0:24:22.160 --> 0:24:25.720 from this federal government that cared not about states rights, 0:24:25.760 --> 0:24:28.760 that cared not about the South and it's its economy 0:24:28.920 --> 0:24:31.920 or it's anabellum mansions or anything like that. That really 0:24:32.040 --> 0:24:35.000 was the War of Northern aggression, and that the Confederacy 0:24:35.320 --> 0:24:38.560 was just protecting their homeland, protecting their way of life, 0:24:38.840 --> 0:24:42.560 and that it was secession not slavery that was um 0:24:42.720 --> 0:24:45.000 at issue here. And a lot of people say, well, 0:24:45.040 --> 0:24:48.480 what was the South seceding from if not the the 0:24:48.480 --> 0:24:53.879 the right exactly right. There's some other tenants to it too. 0:24:53.920 --> 0:24:57.200 There's this is very important. This is an important part 0:24:57.240 --> 0:25:01.120 of the Lost Cause narrative is that actually e slaves 0:25:01.160 --> 0:25:05.040 were happy to be enslaved. They were happy with their servitude. 0:25:05.040 --> 0:25:07.680 They didn't have to think about what to do with life, 0:25:07.720 --> 0:25:09.960 they didn't have to worry about wondering what they were 0:25:10.000 --> 0:25:12.879 gonna do, and they were maybe too shiftless to really 0:25:13.320 --> 0:25:16.639 be responsible to manage their own life anyway. So they 0:25:16.640 --> 0:25:21.240 were actually happier under the Anabellum plantation system of slavery 0:25:21.359 --> 0:25:24.879 than they were free. That's a huge tenant of the 0:25:24.960 --> 0:25:27.760 Lost Cause UM. And then the other part of it, 0:25:27.800 --> 0:25:29.800 and the whole reason that it has the name the 0:25:29.840 --> 0:25:32.760 Lost Cause, is that the only reason, the only reason 0:25:33.119 --> 0:25:37.760 that the Confederacy lost the Civil War was because the 0:25:37.880 --> 0:25:45.440 UM the North was just so so vastly richer with resources, manpower, 0:25:45.920 --> 0:25:49.919 UM industry, that the South from the beginning UM was 0:25:50.040 --> 0:25:53.000 destined to lose the war. It just couldn't couldn't compete 0:25:53.040 --> 0:25:55.600 in that respect. Hence the name lost cause. The South's 0:25:55.680 --> 0:25:58.800 cause was lost from the outset. So if you were 0:25:58.800 --> 0:26:02.159