The removal of Confederate Monuments has been a controversial subject over the past few decades. Citizens of The United States have had many different personal views about these monuments and statues. They have argued back and forth whether the statutes are better off being left up, or should be scrapped and replaced with a more suitable memorial. The people of America say these monuments are a part of history, and represent America’s past struggles and hurdles and serve as a testament to the pain of millions of Americans. And to a certain degree, they’re right. Some of the monuments represented the good in people. But most others are only hollow statues that are only facades put up to help show a narrative. They were put up to help spread …show more content…
Some are statues of people and soldiers, and some are simple shapes, like obelisks. Although, one thing that all these monuments have in common is that they are all, at one point, were propaganda that was used to help southern political views. “The first began around 1900, amid the period in which states were enacting Jim Crow laws to disenfranchise the newly freed African Americans and re-segregate society. This spike lasted well into the 1920s, a period that saw a dramatic resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, which had been born in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. The second spike began in the early 1950s and lasted through the 1960s, as the civil rights movement led to a backlash among segregationists” (Zack Beauchamp). These monuments were helped put up with the aid of confederate-related groups. Some people speculate that with these monuments still up, they still act as propaganda for groups who still hold Confederate beliefs. For others, the monuments are monuments that share and tell the tale of America’s twisted and broken history. They can interpret the statutes, and say it means so many other thing. But the fact still remains that a majority of these memorials were put up as propaganda to help go against African-American’s rights, and spread southern …show more content…
These monuments were not established by the city, or by private parties. These monument were never regulated and never approved. “Few if any of the monuments went through any of the approval procedures that we now commonly apply to public art.” (W. Fitzhugh Brundage). The memorials were put up to help protest the change of the southern lifestyle, and were built as propaganda to help advance the southern political agenda. Mark Elliot, a history professor at The University of North Carolina, said “White women were instrumental in raising funds to build these Confederate monuments. The United Daughters of the Confederacy, UDC, was probably the most important and influential group” (Becky Little). Take for example the Confederate equivalent to Mount Rushmore, the Confederate stone carving in Stone Mountain, Georgia. The memorial was commissioned by the president of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and took over 50 years to build. The memorial was originally a monument funded by a third party, UDC, and was built in their own vision. Unapproved by the state, and not a regulated