The Left Attempting To Tear Down History

[Ryan Ruck]

All around the nation, Leftists are now attempting to tear down historical monuments to the Confederacy in an attempt to erase history. Understandable as it was the Democrat party that held slavery as an institution and opposed equality of the races.

With as widespread and virulent as this "sudden" movement is, it cannot be a coincidence.

Starting this thread to document the efforts of the left to erase and rewrite history.

[Ryan Ruck]

Protesters in Durham Topple a Confederate Monument

August 14, 2017

Chanting “No K.K.K., no fascist U.S.A.,” the protesters slung a rope around the Confederate soldier’s neck and pulled.

The crowd stepped back, out of the way, and the soldier came crashing to the ground in a heap of crumpled metal.

From Charlottesville, Va., to New Orleans, officials have removed or considered removing Confederate monuments, to sometimes-violent backlash. But in Durham, N.C., on Monday night, opponents of the relics took matters into their own hands.

Shortly after 7 p.m., the protesters — part of a group of more than 100 that included anti-fascists and members of organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America, the Workers World Party and the Industrial Workers of the World, according to The News & Observer of Raleigh — toppled a statue of a Confederate soldier that had stood in front of the old Durham County Courthouse for nearly a century above the inscription, “In memory of the boys who wore the gray.”

The figure fell headfirst, still attached to a piece of its pedestal, and the crowd — men and women, black and white, mostly young — erupted in whoops and cheers. Some protesters ran over and began kicking the statue. Others took photos beside it.

The Durham Police Department said in a statement that it had made no arrests because the episode had occurred on county property, which is under the jurisdiction of the Durham County Sheriff’s Office. Members of the sheriff’s office filmed the protest as the statue came down, The News & Observer reported, but the office did not respond to a request for comment on Monday night, and it was not clear whether its officers had made any arrests.

Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, wrote on Twitter, “The racism and deadly violence in Charlottesville is unacceptable, but there is a better way to remove these monuments.”

The do-it-yourself removal prompted strong reactions on social media, with many expressions of support but also at least one person who likened it to the Islamic State’s destruction of historical artifacts.

The 15-foot monument, depicting an armed, uniformed Confederate soldier, was dedicated in 1924, six decades after the Civil War.

About two and a half hours after the statue was toppled, Charlie Reece, a member of the Durham City Council, posted screenshots on Twitter of an email exchange between him and a resident.

“Please consider removing the Confederate statue in downtown Durham,” the resident, whose name Mr. Reece redacted, wrote at 6:20 p.m.

“With respect,” Mr. Reece replied at 9:32, “I don’t believe there is a Confederate statue in downtown Durham any longer.”

#BREAKING Protesters in #Durham topple confederate monument downtown pic.twitter.com/a3BNIavyxC

— Derrick Lewis (@DerrickQLewis) August 14, 2017

[Ryan Ruck]

Abrams Calls For Removal Of Confederate Faces Off Stone Mountain

August 15, 2017



Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams called for the removal of the giant carving that depicts three Confederate war leaders on the face of state-owned Stone Mountain, saying it “remains a blight on our state and should be removed.”

“We must never celebrate those who defended slavery and tried to destroy the union,” Abrams said in a series of tweets posted early Tuesday, a response to the deadly violence sparked by white supremacist groups in Charlottesville, Va.

Removing the faces of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson would take a monster of a sandblaster and require a change in state law. The Georgia code has a clear mandate for the memorial, saying it should be “preserved and protected for all time as a tribute to the bravery and heroism of the citizens of this state who suffered and died in their cause.”

Lawmakers and civil rights groups have called for the removal of Confederate symbols at the memorial for years. After the 2015 shooting deaths of nine black worshipers by a white supremacist in Charleston, several legislators pushed for a boycott until Rebel flags at the site come down.

Georgia leaders have embraced recent changes to distance the state from its Rebel history.

Gov. Nathan Deal quietly struck Confederate Memorial Day from the state’s official holiday calendar and removed the statue of a segregationist leader from the state grounds. State-issued license plates featuring the Rebel emblem have been altered, though only slightly. Statues and paintings of Confederate leaders in the statehouse are facing fresh criticism. And the state is set to unveil a statue of Martin Luther King Jr. outside the Capitol this month.

Abrams faces state Rep. Stacey Evans in next year’s Democratic primary, and the race has quickly turned testy. She has faced criticism for refusing to rebuke protesters who chanted “support black women” at Evans at a progressive conference over the weekend.

Four high-profile Republicans are in the race, and several were critical of her stance. Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle said the state has taken “great strides” to add exhibits that give a more inclusive view of the Civil War.

“Instead of dividing Georgians with inflammatory rhetoric for political gain,” he said, “we should work together to add to our history, not take from it.”

[Ryan Ruck]

Birmingham Covers Confederate Monument As City Considers Removal

August 15, 2017

Birmingham Mayor William Bell, on Tuesday afternoon, ordered the Confederate monument at Linn Park covered while legal options to remove it are being considered.

This move comes just hours after Birmingham City Council President Johnathan Austin, earlier on Tuesday, asked Bell to defy Alabama law and remove Confederate monuments from city parks.

"We need to take them down," he told the mayor during the city council's weekly meeting. "We will deal with the repercussions after that."

The monuments are "offensive to our citizens," Austin said.

The monument was temporarily covered in plastic this afternoon. The plastic was later removed. Around 9 p.m., city crews arrived at the park to replace the covering with plywood.

Austin readdressed the controversial issue days after a woman was killed and more than 19 people were injured Saturday when an Ohio man drove a car through a crowd of people in Charlottesville, Va. protesting neo-Nazis and white nationalists. The violent protests stemmed from that city's efforts to remove a Confederate monument.

Austin issued this statement after learning of Bell's order:

"Thanks to Mayor Bell for coming around to understand the pain caused by the continued presence of these monuments. I appreciate his commitment to upholding the laws.

"However, more than 50 years ago in a cell just a few blocks from where we sit today, Dr. (Martin Luther) King (Jr.) instructed us on the importance of identifying and defying unjust laws. In a letter from the Birmingham jail, he advised us, 'Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.' There is nothing more degrading than slavery, or the rejection of the fundamental principle that all men are created equal. The so-called 'lost cause' of the Confederacy degraded African Americans and any celebration of that gives life to that cause. I call on Mayor Bell to reject the degradation of the citizens he was elected to serve. Mr. Mayor, tear down those statues."

Two years ago, the Birmingham Park and Recreation Board unanimously approved a resolution to ask city attorneys to research the removal of the 112-year-old monument to Confederate veterans at Birmingham's Linn Park.

Save Our South, a nonprofit organization that aims to "preserve history and provide a voice for Southerners," filed a lawsuit to prevent the removal.

During Tuesday's city council meeting, Bell said he is looking to challenge state law prohibiting local governments from moving historical monuments on public property.

Gov. Kay Ivey signed the bill into law in May. Breaking the law could result in a $25,000 fine.

Within a short time of Austin's suggestion on Tuesday a Gofundme account was established by a group called "People of Birmingham" with a goal of $25,000 to pay the state fine for the removal of the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Birmingham Alabama's Linn Park. As of early afternoon, $180 had been raised.

Bell said the monument at Linn Park was put there with private funds.

But, the mayor said he wouldn't break the law and remove it.

"I am not in the business to break the law, I am charged to protect," he said, but adding that he will challenge the law.

Bell told Austin that he and the rest of the city council could "disregard the law just as well and go and take it down."

During Tuesday's meeting, Austin gave Bell a few options to consider in the removal of the monument. He said order the removal immediately, or ask the Birmingham Parks and Recreation Department to remove it.

He said the mayor could also ask for legal advice from the city law department. No matter their answer, Austin said Bell should remove the monument and deal with the repercussions later.

Austin also suggested Bell could submit an application to the state and ask permission to remove the monument.

"If they say no, we still take them down," he said.

The 52-foot memorial at Linn Park was commissioned by the Pelham Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and dedicated in 1905.

[Ryan Ruck]

Apparently Al Sharpton wants the Jefferson Memorial removed next...

[Ryan Ruck]

Some idiots even vandalized the Lincoln Memorial...

Lincoln Memorial Vandalized With Red Spray Paint

Someone vandalized the Lincoln Memorial, the National Park Service said.

The words "F--- law" were found written in red spray paint early Tuesday on a pillar at the monument that overlooks the Capitol building and National Mall, NPS said Tuesday afternoon. The graffiti was found about 4:30 a.m.

"It's frustrating, not only for the Park Service but certainly for the visitors that come here, that anyone would vandalize any of our iconic memorials. Especially the Lincoln Memorial. Especially with everything that's going on now -- the calls for unity and people to come together," NPS spokesman Mike Litterst said.

"To go to the site of the memorial to Abraham Lincoln and do that, that's disappointing," he said.

A child visiting the memorial said, "They vandalized the Lincoln Memorial, this beautiful masterpiece."

It was not immediately clear if the vandals were caught on surveillance cameras, the NPS spokesman said. The crime is a federal offense.

Work to remove the words is underway. A preservation crew is using a "mild, gel-type architectural paint stripper" to remove the paint without damaging the stone. The crew is applying a layer of the gel, rinsing it, checking how effective it was and repeating as necessary.

On Tuesday evening, the words were covered by thick paper.

The work is expected to extend for a week.

News4 spotted additional damage to the Lincoln Memorial Tuesday afternoon. Someone appears to have carved "M + E" on the same pillar where the red spray paint was found. The letters were thought to have been there for a while. While the paint can be removed, the carving is permanent.

Additional vandalism, in silver spray paint, was found on a sign on the 1400 block of Constitution Avenue, NPS said. Any words were indecipherable.

In February, someone vandalized the Lincoln Memorial, World War II Memorial, D.C. War Memorial and Washington Monument with permanent marker.

That graffiti was small scrawlings that appeared to say: "Jackie shot JFK;" "blood test is a lie, leukemia, cancer HIV get a second option;" and "9/11/01 ... pilots fly planes into WTC."

Kevin Hall, a U.S. serviceman who took his family to the Lincoln Memorial after the vandalism in February, said he took it personally.

"I served the greatest air force in the world, but to come here to see that is like a slap in our face," he said.

Defacing a national monument or memorial is rare but not unheard of. The most significant case in recent memory was a bizarre incident in 2013, when a woman threw green paint on the Lincoln Memorial and later at the Washington National Cathedral. She was arrested but later found incompetent to stand trial.

In that case, it took crews nearly a month to clear the green paint from the Lincoln Memorial, but NPS staff are skilled in the tricky removal process of graffiti removal.

Anyone with information on the recent crime is asked to contact U.S. Park Police at 202-610-7515.

[Ryan Ruck]

Confederate Statue Removed From Downtown Gainesville

August 16, 2017

A monument to fallen Confederate soldiers in downtown Gainesville was brought down Monday and carried away quietly by workers hired by the group that placed it there 113 years ago.

Construction workers removed the statue, nicknamed “Old Joe,” from the front of the Alachua County Administration Building. A representative of the Kirby Smith Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy was on hand, but declined to comment. The statue now stands in Oak Ridge Cemetery near Rochelle, southeast of Gainesville.

Removing the statue from prominence has been hotly debated for more than a year, but in the end no protesters showed up. Gainesville police were parked around the corner, waiting, just in case.

Those who watched the monument come down around noon whipped out their cellphones to record what they called — for better or worse — history.

Gainesville resident Melissa Wokasch, 41, wiped tears away as she watched workers chip away at the statue’s base.

“It’s about time,” she said. “I think this should have been done a long time ago. I think there’s a greater sense of urgency now than ever.”

Friday, white nationalists held a torch-lit march at the University of Virginia, protesting the removal of a Confederate monument there. The next day, violence erupted during protests in Charlottesville, leaving three dead and more than 30 injured.

A candlelit vigil was held Sunday on the steps of Gainesville’s City Hall, just across the street from the county building, where more than 300 people showed support for those injured in Charlottesville.

The decision to move the statue here was settled more than a month ago when the United Daughters of the Confederacy agreed to take it after other groups had declined it.

Prominent symbols of the Confederacy became increasingly controversial since June 17, 2015, when Dylann Roof opened fire in an historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, killing nine people gathered for a Bible study. Roof said he was trying to start a race war.

Most who strolled through Gainesville’s downtown Monday were in support of Old Joe being removed.

County officials said they didn’t know where the statue would go. “It’s not going to a county property,” county spokesman Mark Sexton said.

The Gainesville Sun located it based on a tip from a reader. The 5.5-acre cemetery on State Road 234 is owned by a group of trustees, according to property records. Its oldest headstones predate the Civil War.

Trevor Holt, 24, a Gainesville resident, said he was disappointed that the statue was being brought down, because it’s a piece of history. “It’s been here forever and now all of a sudden people have a problem with it,” he said.

Holt said he doesn’t consider it a symbol of racism and believes the removal was expedited to keep up with other government bodies removing Confederate statues.

“It is whatever you make it to be,” he said. “I think it’s more of the history of this town and what this town has been though.”

County Commissioner Robert Hutchinson said the removal of the statue is not about rewriting history.

“The history is the history and I don’t think we are trying to reinterpret it any more than the statue is trying to reinterpret it,” he said.

He said the commission always wanted to remove Old Joe, but was unsure who would take it. He said he never wanted it demolished and believes it’s better-suited to a museum or veterans park.

“The solution, which should have been obvious from the beginning, was simply to give it back to who gave it to us,” he said.

The statue was unveiled in Jan. 19, 1904, the birthday of Gen. Robert E. Lee, to music from the Gainesville Orchestra followed by speeches.

O.T. Davis Monument Company was in charge of the removal, hired by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and worked through the rain Monday to ensure the job was complete.

Construction workers arrived at the county building around 9:30 a.m. The statue was detached in several pieces, a process that took more than four hours.

Workers jack-hammered around the base, then unscrewed three half-inch bolts and pulled off the copper soldier with a small crane. Workers then used the crane to lift parts of the pedestal into a truck.

Preparations to remove Old Joe began Sunday as Jeffrey Monroe, a private contractor, began sawing the base of the statue to make Monday’s workload lighter.

His brown boots were caked with debris as he wielded a noisy power saw around the statue’s base.

Monroe, 50, said he didn’t care if the statute stayed or was removed; he was just doing his job.

Ian Mitchell, a 24-year-old graduate student at the University of Florida, carried a small American flag and watched the process from the corner of the street.

“These weren’t American soldiers,” Mitchell said. “These were people fighting for a cause they believed in, against the U.S. government and on the wrong side of history ... There’s no valor in the Confederate soldier. This is nothing to be celebrated here and this isn’t a piece of history.”

City Commissioner Harvey Ward said he was glad to see Old Joe go, too, adding that his great-great-great-grandfather was a Confederate soldier in the Civil War.

Ward said the statue was erected to honor a “lost cause.” But for some, he said, it’s a “painful reminder of injustice.”

“These statues didn’t pop up at the end of the Civil War to honor veterans,” Ward said.

Amanda Wagner-Perlkey, 37, said the statue stands for oppression and was erected to remind people that whites are superior to blacks and needed to go.

Hutchinson said he believes the removal cost about $15,000. He said he hopes the UDC adds a historical plaque to the statue, wherever it goes.

The county has no plans at the moment for any type of replacement in that spot, but a lynching-victims memorial could soon be put up near the Public Defender’s Office at 151 SW Second Ave., he added.

Also Monday, Jacksonville City Council President Anna Lopez Brosche said in a news release that the city will begin working to remove all Confederate monuments, markers and memorials from public property.

[Ryan Ruck]

Just had to do it under cover of night...

Crews Remove Baltimore's Confederate Statues Overnight

August 16, 2017



Baltimore's four Confederate monuments have come down faster than previously thought.

Baltimore's mayor and City Council members differed over how to remove the city's four Confederate monuments, but crews removed all four statues early Wednesday.

"I thought that there was enough grandstanding, enough speeches being made. Get it done. I spoke with the Council on Monday morning. I spoke with the president of the City Council. I said, 'With the climate of this nation, that I think it's very important that we move quickly and quietly,'" Pugh said during a news conference at 10 a.m. Wednesday.

"I did what was right for my city," Pugh said.

About a dozen city crews and private contractors were seen in Wyman Park, removing the Lee and Jackson Monument. Crews started getting ready around midnight Tuesday. By 3 a.m., a crane hoisted the monument from its pedestal. By 3:45 a.m., the monument was transferred to a flatbed truck.

The Roger Taney statue in Mount Vernon had already been removed by the time 11 News arrived at 2:30 a.m.

Pugh decided in June to remove the Confederate monuments then decided Tuesday to do it overnight.

The mayor said removal began around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday and ended around 5:30 a.m. Wednesday. She watched in person. The monuments have been taken somewhere outside the city.

She suggests plaques take the place of the statues to explain what used to be there and why they were removed.

The mayor advises others who are considering removing Confederate statues to do it quietly and quickly.

"I think any city that has Confederate statues are concerned about violence occurring in their city, and I just think that Baltimore, right in the midst of getting the consent decree completed, this is not something that is needed," Pugh said.

On Monday night, the City Council cited events in Charlottesville, Virginia, when it adopted a resolution calling for the immediate destruction of Confederate monuments.

Baltimore's four Confederate monuments included a Confederate women's monument in Bishop Square Park, a monument for soldiers and sailors on Mount Royal Avenue, the Lee and Jackson Monument in the Wyman Park Dell and a statue of Roger Taney that sits just north of the Washington Monument.

Pugh has said that she has talked with contractors about logistics, contacted the Maryland Historical Trust for permissions and identified Confederate cemeteries to send some statues to.

[Ryan Ruck]

Finally! Some return fire!

Alabama AG Sues Birmingham, Bell Over Confederate Soldiers And Sailors Monument Barriers

August 16, 2017

UPDATE 3 PM AUG. 16, 2017: Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said Wednesday his office has filed a lawsuit in the Jefferson County Circuit Court against Mayor WIlliam Bell and the City of Birmingham for violating state law by constructing barriers to cover the monument in Linn Park.



“In accordance with the law, my office has determined that by affixing tarps and placing plywood around the Linn Park Memorial such that it is hidden from view, the Defendants have ‘altered’ or ‘otherwise disturbed’ the memorial in violation of the letter and spirit of the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act,” said Attorney General Marshall. “The City of Birmingham does not have the right to violate the law and leaves my office with no choice but to file suit.”

Bell responded to the news Wednesday afternoon with a statement sent to news media via his spokesperson April Odom:

We look forward to the court system clarifying the rights and power of a municipality to control its parks absent state intervention.– Mayor William Bell

—

City workers arrived at Linn Park just before 10 p.m. Tuesday night with large wooden walls and nail guns to cover the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument on orders from Birmingham Mayor Williams Bell.

The monument stands at the entrance of the park at the end of 20th Street North, and it was given to the city by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1905, according to Bhamwiki.

Mayor Bell’s order came in the wake of violence perpetrated by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend, which left one person dead and many others injured. The violence began with protests over the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

Mayoral candidate Frank Matthews had objections to the covering of the confederate monument in Birmingham. Matthews shadowed city workers late last night, protesting against the covering. He argued that the monument should not be covered now because it was not covered after the murder of nine black churchgoers by a self-avowed white supremacist in Charleston, South Carolina back in 2015.

“No, this is not rabble rousing. I’m speaking to what is wrong,” Matthews said. “You didn’t take it down when nine people was killed. Nine black people in a church.”

Despite Matthews’ protest, the work continued on covering the monument. According to April Odom with the city’s office, the Mayor is exploring legal options for removing the monument.

[Ryan Ruck]

Wow, seems like politicians are just tripping over themselves to appease. This is somewhat local to me.

Had been there 90 years and is suddenly a issue because it's in a right of way. Talk about a chickenshit excuse...

Sign Placed Where Controversial Confederate Monument Removed In Franklin, Ohio

August 17, 2017



A Confederate monument that that has been at a corner in Franklin was removed overnight.

Our news partners at WCPO reported the stone monument of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that was located at Dixie Highway and Hamilton Middletown Road was missing when they arrived before 3 a.m. today.

This news outlet has left messages for Franklin Twp. and Franklin officials for comment on who removed the large stone monument and where it was taken to overnight.

The 90-year-old stone monument was erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to honor the general and Dixie Highway, which was a major north/south route before the advent of interstate highways.

The monument was a point of contention between the city of Franklin and Franklin Twp. officials on Wednesday about ownership of the monument and if officials in either jurisdiction weere going to remove it in light of recent events in Charlottesville and other communities across the nation.

After the township and Warren County officials determined the monument was on a city-owned easement, city officials announced Wednesday evening that monument would be removed as Right of Ways need to be clear for safety reasons. Acting City Manager Jonathan Westendorf hoped to have the monument removed before a planned demonstration by a Dayton-based racial justice organization.

Hours after city of Franklin officials announced the planned removal of the monument, Township Administrator Traci Stivers issued a press release acknowledging the city’s decision to remove the monument from the city-owned Right of Way.

“At this time, we are unsure when or where the monument will be relocated. Rest assured, however, discussion regarding this monument will take place and a statement will be issued at such a time that a determination is made,” Stivers said.

We will update this story as more information becomes available.


UPDATE @ 6:53 a.m.

Franklin Twp. Administrator Traci Stivers informed this news outlet that no one from the township removed the Confederate monument overnight.


UPDATE @ 7:28 a.m.

Acting City Manager Jonathan Westendorf said, “city public works crews were authorized to remove the monument last night.. The monument was removed overnight to assure the safety of the crews performing the work and preserve the security of the monument as well as — which is intact.

Westendorf said the order to remove the monument was given to the public works department at the same time the press release was issued Wednesday night.

“It was not initially clear if our crews would be able to remove the marker due to its size,” he said. “When public works crews determined that the work could be performed within the safe working limits of our equipment, the work proceeded.”




UPDATE @ 10:46 a.m. (Aug. 17):

A makeshift sign was placed on the site where a controversial Confederate monument was removed in Franklin.

The sign reads, “We do not negotiate with terrorist. BLM is a terrorist organization.”



A confederate flag is also featured on the sign, which was on the property around 10:45 a.m.

[Ryan Ruck]

Activists Replace Statue Of Robert E. Lee With Statue Of A Pregnant Black Woman In Baltimore

August 17, 2017


Activists erect a statue called "Madre Luz," a pregnant black woman, in front of where a statue of Civil War Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson once stood in Baltimore. The city removed the Lee and Jackson statue early Wednesday morning.

Last Sunday, Baltimore activists placed a statue stylized as “lady liberty of black power,” in front of a statue of Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson riding horses side by side according to WUSA-TV.

The Lee and Stonewall statue was removed on Wednesday by city officials, but the activist’s statue still remains.

According to WUSA, the statue of Lee and Jackson was one of four Confederate statues removed by Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh. Pugh said she ordered the removals of the statues as a matter of public safety after the violence seen in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday.

The clash between leftist radicals and white supremacists in Charlottesville began as a protest over the removal of a statue of Lee.

Pugh said the statues are safely in storage, but did not disclose the location. The mayor suggested that the statues could be relocated to Confederate cemeteries in the future.

Artist Pablo Machioli and a few of his friends erected a papier-mache statue of a pregnant black woman holding her fist into the air, to stand in front of the Lee and Jackson statue. The statue is adorned with a rainbow sash, a baby on her back, and her raised fist is coated in gold glitter.

According to the Baltimore Sun, the statue is called “Madre Luz,” or “Mother Light” in Spanish.

According to City Paper, Machioli first erected the statue in front of the Lee and Jackson statue in 2015. The idea came from Machioli’s friend, Silverman Andrews, who wanted to “create attention” about social justice issues like white supremacy and racism in art, and to celebrate the 2016 Baltimore riots.

Originally, the statue was supposed to be an image of abolitionist Harriet Tubman throwing a brick at Lee and Jackson. Machioli did not want a statue depicting violence, and instead created “Madre Luz.”

“Madre Luz” was placed in front of the Lee and Jackson statue after its creation. It was removed and impounded in less than 24 hours, and Machioli was fined $75. Afterward, Machioli moved the statue to his home at the Copycat Building, a warehouse converted a space where artists live and work. It stayed there for the next two years.


According to the Baltimore Sun, Machioli and his friends brought the statue back to stand in front of the Lee and Jackson monument on Sunday, following the events of Charlottesville. Though the Lee and Jackson monument is gone, “Madre Luz” still stands. The statue is not sanctioned by the city, but has not been removed by city officials.

The Baltimore Sun reported that “Madre Luz” has been knocked over and vandalized several times. Each time, Machiol and his friends return to repair it.

[Ryan Ruck]

Fucking retards... This is the level of abject idiocy we're facing.

Lincoln Statue Found Burned on Chicago's South Side: Alderman

August 17, 2017



An Abraham Lincoln was damaged and burned in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood late Wednesday, Ald. Ray Lopez said.

The statue was found burned near 69th Street and Wolcott, authorities said.

"What an absolute disgraceful act of vandalism," Lopez wrote on Facebook along with an image of the charred structure. He encouraged anyone who has information on what happened to contact police or his office "immediately."

Police did not immediately have information on what happened.

The statue, a bust of Lincoln, was erected by Phil Bloomquist on Aug. 31, 1926.

It is one of many that have been vandalized across the country in wake of the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia and the president's comments that followed.

On Tuesday, someone vandalized the Lincoln Memorial, writing "F--- law" in red spray paint on a pillar at the monument.

Cities and states accelerated their plans to remove Confederate monuments from public property Tuesday as the violence over a Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville moved leaders across the country to plan to wipe away much of the remaining Old South imagery.

The changes were publicized as President Donald Trump defended Confederate statues in wide-ranging remarks.

"This week it's Robert E. Lee. I notice that Stonewall Jackson's coming down," Trump said during a visit to Trump Tower in New York. "I wonder, is it George Washington next week, and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?"

Trump took to Twitter Thursday morning to call out a Republican senator who had criticized his equivocal remarks on bigotry and hatred, and to lament at "the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart" by removing "beautiful statues and monuments" honoring Confederate leaders.

[Ryan Ruck]

Hollywood Forever Cemetery To Take Out Confederate Memorial After Public Demands Removal

August 17, 2017

Many people urged the Hollywood Forever Cemetery to remove a Confederate memorial on the property, and the group which owns the stone piece chose to do so Tuesday.

The memorial has been at the cemetery since 1925, but the decision to remove it came in a matter of hours because of growing outrage after the Charlottesville, Virginia chaos and threats of vandalism.

"It just ignited here, where we started getting a lot of calls, a lot of emails, a lot of social media posts and online petitions asking us to remove it," president and co-owner of the cemetery, Tyler Cassity, said.

Not many people knew about the monument until the Los Angeles Times published an op-ed, sparking the massive call for its removal. All across the country, the call to remove Confederate statues and monuments has grown.

But this is a unique case, cemetery officials said, because the monument is not on public property and is owned by the Long Beach chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

"Not only is it private property, but it's private property within private property with bodies buried there to be remembered. So to erase a part of their past, regardless of whatever personal feelings I have, professionally I can't do that," Cassity said.

The cemetery reached out to the group, who asked to have the monument removed before any serious damage was done. Earlier Tuesday, someone had vandalized the bronze plaque with graffiti.

Officials said more than 30 grave markers of the Confederate soldiers and their families buried around the site will remain, but the massive stone monument will be gone.

"The Daughters said we are a benevolent organization. We didn't seek this attention. We don't want to be part of this uproar," Cassity said.

The monument will be taken down and put into storage until the group can decide what to do with it. The cemetery has started to receive threats of protests and rallies from the other side of this debate.

[Ryan Ruck]

Good!

Gettysburg Stands Firm: Battlefield Says All Monuments Staying Put

August 16, 2017

Officials at the Gettysburg National Military Park said Wednesday that the monuments at the expansive Pennsylvania battlefield will stay despite unrest over Confederate memorials.

"These memorials, erected predominantly in the early and mid-20th Century, are an important part of the cultural landscape," battlefield spokeswoman Katie Lawhon told the Hanover Evening Sun.

Gettysburg was the site of the bloodiest battle of the Civil War, from July 1-3, 1863.

There are more than 1,300 memorials at the park- ranging in size from tiny stone markers for smaller regiments' positions, to the massive Pennsylvania State Monument that includes a cupola for visitors.

The park also has several streets named after soldiers on both sides, including the Union's Daniel Sickles and Winfield Scott Hancock, and the Confederacy's Ambrose Wright.

The National Park Service's policy on battlefield monuments states that the feds are "committed to safeguarding these unique and site-specific memorials in perpetuity, while simultaneously interpreting holistically and objectively the actions... they commemorate."

Farther south in Richmond, Va., gubernatorial candidate Ralph Northam (D-Accomac) said he will press for several Confederate statues along the city's Monument Avenue to be taken down.

However, Northam said he would "defer to the city" on how to proceed in doing so, according to the Richmond Post-Dispatch.

Democratic Mayor Levar Stoney said a commission established to "add context" next to the monuments is preferable to taking them down, the paper said.

[Ryan Ruck]

Protest In Downtown Columbus, OH Calls For Removal Of Christopher Columbus Statue

August 19, 2017

Protesters took to City Hall today urging leaders to remove the statue of Christopher Columbus, which they say is a symbol of white supremacy.

The organization, Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) led the event with speakers, music and several moments of silence in solidarity with Charlottesville.

“We just hope for change,” said Stacey Little, representing the People’s Justice Project. (Really?)

“Columbus being the city that it is, it’s supposed to be so progressive, supposed to be so smart, should take this moment and this time to do what’s right,” Little said.

She’d like to see the statue removed but Little and others there told 10TV the cause is bigger than the statues.

“I think it gets to the heart of what our nation is founded on, how we’re going forward, how we’re going to treat our citizens and I think change needs to come and it’s groups of people like this on all walks of life talking and pulling that together,” said Zach Ballew, who drove to Columbus from Athens with his 11-year-old daughter, Magnolia.

“We’re here because we believe that right now our country is having a conversation that is a long time coming and I think this is kind of a point where we’re really talking about oppression and issues that affect a lot of people,” Ballew said.

Mayor Andrew Ginther also released a statement via email regarding the protest.

“I support the removal of monuments celebrating the Confederacy, but I would urge people to remember that the disturbing and tragic events that unfolded in Charlottesville were not about statues, but about persistent racism in our country. There are many perspectives on the Christopher Columbus statue, but let’s not be distracted from the need to address the real problem: the racial divide in our community and across the country.”

[Ryan Ruck]

Oldest Christopher Columbus Statue In The World In Vandalized In Baltimore

Aimed at explorer’s role in “genocide and exploitation,” vandals say, action follows city’s removal of Confederate monuments

August 21, 2017



Baltimore’s 225-year-old monument to Christopher Columbus, said to be the oldest in the country and the world dedicated to the explorer that is still standing, has been severely vandalized.

A video posted today shows someone smashing the inscription at the base of the 44-foot-tall obelisk located at the intersection of Harford Road and Walther Avenue, across from Herring Run Park.

This morning the words on the statue – Sacred to the Memory of Chris. Columbus Oct. XII MDCC VIIIC – were unreadable, a hole smashed in the stone.

“Racism: Tear it down,” one sign leaning on the monument base says.

“The future is racial and economic justice,” said another sign that was lying in the grass.

The vandalism comes in the wake of intense controversy, across the country and in Baltimore, over monuments to the Confederacy and the city-ordered removal of four Confederate-related monuments last week.


Baltimore’s Columbus Memorial, now smashed, once read: “Sacred to the Memory of Chris. Columbus Oct. XII MDCC VIIIC. “



In the video, one person smashes the monument with a sledge hammer as another holds a sign. An unidentified narrator explains why the action was being taken:

“Christopher Columbus symbolizes the initial invasion of European capitalism into the Western Hemisphere. Columbus initiated a centuries-old wave of terrorism, murder, genocide, rape, slavery, ecological degradation and capitalist exploitation of labor in the Americas. That Columbian wave of destruction continues on the backs of Indigenous, African-American and brown people.

“Racist monuments to slave owners and murderers have always bothered me. Baltimore’s poverty is concentrated in African-American households, and these statues are just an extra slap in the face. They were built in the 20th century in response to a movement for African Americans’ human dignity. What kind of a culture goes to such lengths to build such hate-filled monuments? What kind of a culture clings to those monuments in 2017?”

Just under two minutes, the video was posted on the YouTube channel, Popular Resistance. It appears to have been filmed early this morning.

There are two other monuments to Columbus in Baltimore, one located at Druid Hill Park, the other at the edge of Little Italy.

It was unclear this morning if they had been vandalized as well.


Columbus Debate Reignited

Baltimore Police this morning said they were checking out the reported vandalism and warned that the perpetrators will be prosecuted.

“It’s dangerous and it’s also unnecessary,” spokesman T.J. Smith said at a media briefing, noting Tuesday night’s city-ordered removal of the Confederate monuments. “It’s something that has a process and the process was seen last week.”

Meanwhile reaction was swift in a city that has been abuzz with the issue of offensive monuments since the recent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va. to protest the removal of a Confederate monument there.

“A lot of people are very upset about it, I’m upset about it,” said Bill Martin, president of Associated Italian-American Charities of Maryland

“I’m hoping it’s just a random act and hopefully not part of some bigger idea,” said Joe DiPasquale, president of the city’s Italian American Civic Club. “We’re going to be talking to the police about protection for all the statues in the city.”

By coincidence, the club’s regular weekly meeting happens to be tonight, said Di Pasquale, owner of DiPasquale’s Italian Marketplace in Highlandtown.

“It’s going to be a hot one,” DiPasquale predicted.

Online commenters were less restrained. “These crazy kooks will be exhuming our ancestors’ remains next,” one man wrote on Facebook.

“A slippery slope,” one warned. “Stop! Live and Let Live!” another agreed.

“We wouldn’t be having this issue if this had been Columbus’ point of view,” another shot back.

“Destruction is inappropriate? Did anyone bother to tell Columbus that?” longtime activist and blogger James MacArthur wrote, adding the hashtags #BaltimoreUprising, #PartII and #TakeThat.

A man who answered the phone at the Little Italy Lodge 2286 in the 900 block of Pratt Street called the idea that Columbus should not be honored “ridiculous.”

“You cannot believe the things that are said about him, he did not do those things,” the man said.

Pushing his son in a stroller near the bashed-in monument this morning, Dan Meyers said he was “of two minds about it.”

“Columbus did bring together Europe and America. That was a major accomplishment,” said Meyers, who lives in the Arcadia neighborhood. “But he did some horrible things to Native Americans.”


Scott: Not the Way to do it

Because of the national debate over whether the Italian explorer who landed on American shores is worthy of veneration, several cities have changed the name of the Columbus Day holiday, a national holiday since 1934.

Seattle, Minneapolis and Berkeley, Calif., for example, have already changed the name of the second Monday in October from Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day.
Baltimore would have made that change as well, under legislation proposed last year by 2nd District City Councilman Brandon M. Scott.

Scott said today said he still thinks Baltimore should not honor the circumnavigator but disapproves of the destruction of the monument to him.

“As you know, I don’t think we should be celebrating Columbus in any fashion, but vandalism is not the way to go about it,” Scott said.

Scott said he was not ready to offer an opinion on what should happen to the city’s three Columbus monuments because he was not sure if they are all on public property.

“But I think people need to know what those statues to him mean to Native American people and African-American people,” he said. “He represents the dawning of slavery and exploitation in this country.”


Once Stood in a Parking Lot

Even before the latest controversy, the Columbus monument has had a somewhat tortured history.

According to Baltimore Sun coverage from the 1990s, it was erected in 1792 by a Frenchman, the Chevalier d’Anemours (or d’Anmour), at Belmont, his estate near Harford Road and North Avenue.

“In 1887, Belmont became the Samuel B. Ready School,” wrote reporter Robert A. Erlandson. “It moved to West Baltimore in 1938 to make way for Sears Roebuck’s huge store, which is now the Eastside District Court.”


Originally erected in 1792, the Columbus obelisk was moved to its present location in northeast Baltimore near Herring Run Park in the 1960s.

“The obelisk, considered too fragile to be moved, was left behind on what became a Sears parking lot,” Erlandson noted.

But that obscurity didn’t last.

Under Mayor Theodore R. McKeldin, the monument was moved its present leafy green setting in Northeast Baltimore. A bronze plaque notes that it was re-dedicated on October 12, 1964.

[Ryan Ruck]

George Washington’s Church To Tear Down Memorial Honoring First President

October 27, 2017

George Washington was one of the founding members of Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia, buying pew No. 5 when the church opened in 1773 and attending for more than two decades whenever he rode north from Mount Vernon to do business in town.

This weekend, the church announced it was pulling down a memorial plaque to its onetime vestryman and the country’s first president, saying he and another famous parishioner, Robert E. Lee, have become so controversial that they are chasing away would-be parishioners.

While acknowledging “friction” over the decision, the church’s leadership said both plaques, which are attached to the front wall on either side of the altar, are relics of another era and have no business in a church that proclaims its motto as “All are welcome — no exceptions.”

“The plaques in our sanctuary make some in our presence feel unsafe or unwelcome. Some visitors and guests who worship with us choose not to return because they receive an unintended message from the prominent presence of the plaques,” the church leaders said in a letter to the congregation that went out last week.

The decision was also announced to parishioners on Sunday.

The backlash was swift, with the church’s Facebook page turning into a battleground. Some supporters praised the church for a “courageous” stand, while critics compared leaders at the Episcopal church leaders to the Taliban or the Islamic State.

Church leaders said they debated for a long time, and the Rev. Noelle York-Simmons, the rector, said in an email to The Washington Times that the vote by the vestry was unanimous. The plaques will come down by next summer, when leadership determines another place for them.

For now, the Lee memorial, about the size of a grave marker, stands to the right of the altar, reading in gold lettering, “In Memory of Robert Edward Lee.” The Washington plaque to the left says: “In memory of George Washington.”

They were erected in 1870, just months after Lee’s death, and were a bit of a sensation at the time, earning mentions in newspapers from Massachusetts to San Francisco. The accounts said the memorials were paid for by subscription of citizens of Alexandria.

The church also has small metal markers on the Washington family pew and at the location where Lee was confirmed, but there is no other information or comment posted on the two men’s lives in the church.

Lack of other details was part of the problem for leaders, who said the memorials didn’t explain the two famous parishioners’ memorial presence.

“Because the sanctuary is a worship space, not a museum, there is no appropriate way to inform visitors about the history of the plaques or to provide additional context except for the in-person tours provided by our docents,” the church leaders said.

It’s not clear that the church could divorce itself from Washington even if it wanted to. The website touts itself as “a church where George Washington worshipped” and displays a picture of its famous patron.

As an original benefactor, Washington bought pew No. 5 when the church opened in 1773. He was a vestryman and contributed to the church throughout his life, according to the Washington Papers project. His family considered the church important enough to him that it donated one of his Bibles after his death.

Lee attended Christ Church beginning at age 3, when he moved from Stratford to Alexandria. The church was so integral to his family that Mary Custis Lee, his daughter, left the church $10,000 in her will upon her death in 1918. That money was used to begin the church’s endowment.

Church leaders did not say whether they will attempt to return the $10,000 gift from Lee’s daughter.

The church’s senior and junior wardens didn’t answer questions about the decision, and neither did Ms. York-Simmons, the rector.

Instead, she emailed a brief statement saying the decision was by “unanimous vote” of the vestry.

“The new display location will be determined by a parish committee. That location will provide a place for our parish to offer a fuller narrative of our rich history, including the influence of these two powerful men on our church and our country,” she said in the email. “We look forward to this opportunity to continue to learn more about our own history and find new ways to introduce it to the wider community.”

In recent years Lee monuments have been under scrutiny. Violence broke out in Charlottesville this year surrounding a Lee statue that the city is trying to take down.

In the wake of those clashes, a church Lee attended in Lexington, Virginia, where he spent his last years, voted to change its name from R.E. Lee Memorial Church to Grace Episcopal Church.

And the Washington National Cathedral removed a stained-glass window with an image of Lee.

Washington memorials had been spared such recriminations.

Christ Church, though, said the two men were inextricably linked in history and had to be considered together, since they were erected together and visually balance each other.

In their letter to parishioners, the church’s leadership praised Washington as “the visionary who not only refused to be king but also gave up power after eight years, and a symbol of our democracy.” Lee was described in less-glowing terms, as a longtime parishioner who for some “symbolizes the attempt to overthrow the Union and to preserve slavery.”

“Today our country is trying once again to come to grips with the history of slavery and the subsequent disenfranchisement of people of color,” the leaders wrote.

Despite his generosity to Christ Church, Washington was a more regular attendant at Pohick Church, which stands south of Mount Vernon. A staffer at Pohick said they have no plans to delete Washington from their church.

[Ryan Ruck]

Confederate Statues Removed From Memphis Parks

December 21, 2017

Memphis' Confederate statues are no longer standing.

City council voted unanimously to immediately remove Confederate statues from both city parks at Wednesday's meeting.

By 11 p.m. Wednesday, both the Jefferson Davis and Nathan Bedford Forrest statues were out of sight.

The city sold Health Sciences Park and Memphis Park to nonprofit organization Memphis Greenspace, Inc. for $1,000 each.

Immediately after the parks were purchased, the statues of Nathan Bedford Forrest and Jefferson Davis were removed.

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland said that the removal of the statues was all privately funded and completely legal.

For months, the city of Memphis has looked into multiple ways to remove the statues. City leaders explored all legal options and even took their case to the state of Tennessee.

Wednesday night, they decided to use a so-called "legal loophole" that allowed them to remove the statues right away.

City councilman Berlin Boyd has long supported the removal of the statues.

"As we are aware, everyone is passionate. No matter what side of history you may be on, we want to create an environment that is inclusive and available for all Memphians," Boyd said.

At 9:01 p.m., the Nathan Bedford Forrest statue was lifted off of its pedestal.

Lee Millar from Sons of Confederate Veterans was on WMC Action News 5 to talk about the statues being removed.

Millar said his group believes the city is breaking the law by removing the statues.

"I think it's a disgusting display by the city council and by the mayor to destroy some of Memphis' history, especially this sham of a sale. We're not through fighting," Millar said.

Millar said he was not at liberty to say what the next move the Sons of Confederate Veterans will take, but said there will be imminent action.

"The city cannot sell land without a hearing, bidding it out and permitting other opportunities for others to do so," Millar said. "But by selling it to a non-profit or anybody else, that's a clear violation of the Heritage Protection Law."

Millar said the actions were a blatant attempt to circumvent the law, violating state cemetery law because the statue is the headstone of the graves of Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife.

Deidre Malone, the president of the Memphis branch of the NAACP, issued the following statement:

"Today history is being made with the removal of the Nathan Bedford Forrest and Jefferson Davis statutes from what are now privately-owned parks. The NAACP Memphis Branch took a position early on stating that we wanted the monuments removed and a legal process followed. The Memphis City Council and Mayor Jim Strickland heard the voices of the people who wanted these removed and legally made it happen. Groups like the NAACP and #Takeemdown901 led by Tami Sawyer have been heard."

Shelby County Schools Superintendent Dorsey Hopson said he drove by Health Sciences Park to see the removal for himself. He wrote on his Twitter, "Shows what we can do when we stand tall together on the side of decency and what we know is right. Great work Memphis! Let's take poverty down next."

Shortly after 10 p.m., crews arrived in Downtown Memphis to remove the statue of Jefferson Davis.

Wednesday night, Mayor Strickland issued a statement on the statues' removal, saying in part:

It’s important to know why we’re here: The Forrest statue was placed in 1904, as Jim Crow segregation laws were enacted. The Davis statue was placed in 1964, as the Civil Rights Movement changed our country. The statues no longer represent who we are as a modern, diverse city with momentum. As I told the Tennessee Historical Commission in October, our community wants to reserve places of reverence for those we honor.

The Tennessee Historical Commission denied our waiver in October. The state initiated mediation last month. But it has not been successful. That led us to today’s outcome.

It’s important to remember what I’ve said all along: I was committed to remove the statues in a lawful way. From the beginning, we have followed state law -- and tonight’s action is no different. The Historical Commission was not the only legal avenue.

So if you’ve spoken up on the statues the past few months, no matter which side, I issue this challenge: Take that energy and apply it to the hard challenges our residents face every single day. Volunteer to be on the front lines. Mentor a child to make a 1-on-1 impact on a life. Help teach a kid to read.

Don’t just talk about it -- take action in improving the quality of life in every home, on every block, in every single neighborhood of this great city.

That’s the work Memphians have entrusted to us, and I’m determined to not let them down.

This is an important moment in the life of our city. People from all walks of life came together to make today a reality. Let us move forward from this moment committed more than ever to a united and determined Memphis.

Today showed us just how successful we can be when that happens.

Click here to read Mayor Strickland's complete statement.

By 11 p.m., the Jefferson Davis statue had been removed.

A small bronze bust of Confederate Army Captain J. Harvey Mathes, which stood near the statue of Jefferson Davis, was also removed.

Congressman Steven Cohen (D-TN) applauded Strickland and the actions taken to remove the statues. He had the following statement:

“I commend Mayor Strickland and the City Council for finding a way to legally remove statues from an era that is not representative of Memphis today and have remained an affront to most of the citizens of Memphis,” Cohen said.

“As we approach the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, it’s important that these relics of the Confederacy and defenders of slavery don’t continue to be displayed in prominent places in our city. Hopefully, the Forrests will be returned to their rightful and preferred burial spot – Elmwood Cemetery.”

[Ryan Ruck]

Apparently destruction of Confederate monuments is passe...

Forward!

Something San Francisco This Way Comes

West Coast craziness coming to a community near you

July 5, 2019

The San Francisco School Board last week authorized $600,000 in spending to destroy a mural depicting George Washington at a high school named for him.

“It’s rude and disrespectful to people’s cultures,” a junior at the school told the San Francisco Chronicle. The school board president agrees. “I think the images are really harmful,” Stevon Cook explains. “But I do understand the sensitivity about it being art. It’s a difficult position to be in.” The board’s vice president, Mark Sanchez, maintains, “Painting it over represents not only a symbolic fresh start, but a real fresh start.”

The censorship follows the removal of an “Early Days” statue, which depicted an American Indian lying at the feet of a Spanish cowboy and Catholic missionary, outside the San Francisco Public Library in September. The city’s Historic Preservation Committee voted unanimously to remove it, and the Arts Commission dubbed the 2,000-pound sculpture “disrespectful, misleading, and racist” in unanimously voting to censor it. The school board similarly found no opposition in its ranks in voting to paint over the Washington mural — despite a New Deal program funding it, a Communist artist painting it, and its message in depicting slavery and a dead Indian as clearly critical of Washington.

The Free Speech Movement called the Bay Area home in the 1960s, and a decade earlier, Allen Ginsberg published his racy poetry through the City Lights bookstore’s publishing arm. A place that once imagined itself as a safe harbor from censors now looks to Savonarola and Mullah Muhammad Omar as guides. Unsurprisingly, Google, Twitter, and other tech companies headquartered in the area follow, and lead, the intolerant zeitgeist.

Counterintuitively, the people with the most to gain from the tolerance of others often exhibit the least tolerance to others. Telling people what to do remains a more universal impulse than live-and-let-live. Everyone wants toleration (or something more). Not everyone tolerates.

While San Francisco bans the foremost Founding Father, it celebrates those who aided and abetted a notorious city resident who demanded that even his mother call him “Father.” As discussed more comprehensively in Cult City: Jim Jones, Harvey Milk, and 10 Days That Shook San Francisco (ISI Books, 2018), many buildings, bridges, and boulevards in the city bear the names of those who tarnished the city by burnishing the name Jim Jones.

Carlton B. Goodlett, whose name now gives city hall its street address, claimed that Jonestown “gives people hope,” shows that “dreams come true,” and represents “the wave of the future” upon traveling to the jungle concentration camp a few months before Jones ordered its inhabitants to kill themselves en masse. Two days after the carnage, Dr. Goodlett continued to run interference for his friend and former patient. Describing Jones as “a man who really attempted to practice the dogmas of Christianity,” Goodlett insisted that “the good works of a man as well as his rascality — they are not interred with his bones.”

When evidence of Jones’s abuse and insanity mounted, Harvey Milk used his office to provide the cult leader credibility. “Such greatness I have found at Jim Jones’ Peoples’ Temple,” he assured Guyanese Prime Minister Forbes Burnham. “Rev. Jones is widely known in the minority communities here and elsewhere as a man of the highest character, who has undertaken constructive remedies for social problems which have been amazing in their scope and effectiveness,” he explained to President Jimmy Carter, urging him not to intervene on behalf of parents wanting their kidnapped son returned from Guyana (he returned in a coffin). In a letter to Carter cabinet secretary Joseph Califano, Milk called Jonestown “a beautiful retirement community,” characterized Peoples’ Temple as transforming criminals into good citizens, and bizarrely called a group that imported food into its agricultural project until the end and counted starving individuals in its ranks as “alleviating the world food crisis.” San Francisco honors Milk with a terminal at its airport, a school, and a square all named for him.

Willie Brown compared Jim Jones to Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi, among others. He encouraged Fidel Castro to regard Jones’s 1977 trip to Cuba as a state visit, as though the cult leader’s stature rose to the level of a national leader. “I have worked with Jim for several years,” Brown wrote Castro, “and consider him a close personal friend and a highly trusted brother in the struggle for liberation.” The western half of the Bay Bridge now goes by the “Willie L. Brown Jr. Bridge.” Whatever Brown’s many accomplishments and considerable charms, he acted as an enabler to the greatest villain in the city’s history.

The city that whitewashes Washington similarly honors Jones boosters Herb Caen, Rep. Phil Burton, and others. Their roles in empowering the vilest figure in the history of the city should serve as if not an automatic disqualifier in public honors at least a factor that gives pause. But in San Francisco playing a central role in the founding of the United States makes one unfit, not playing supporting and leading parts in the rise of the man responsible for killing over 900 Americans.

Clearly, this culture war does not stop at the San Francisco city limits, and the culture warriors do not fix aim merely at controversial figures in U.S. history, such as Confederate generals. They seek to erase nearly all of U.S. history and erect a new pantheon of greats consisting of ideologues who flatter progressive sensibilities. This isn’t patriotism but politics.

Nike pulling the release of its Betsy Ross flag sneakers, Charlottesville’s city council voting to end a holiday honoring longtime favorite son Thomas Jefferson, and the widespread contempt exhibited in response to a patriotic parade in the nation’s capital on the occasion of the nation’s birthday suggests that the winds of the Bay Area blow east. Something San Francisco this way comes.

[Ryan Ruck]

Charlottesville, VA Drops Thomas Jefferson's Birthday As Holiday

July 2, 2019

Charlottesville, Virginia, will no longer celebrate Thomas Jefferson’s birthday as an official city holiday and instead will observe a day recognizing the emancipation of enslaved African-Americans.

The city council voted Monday night to scrap the decades-old April 13 holiday honoring the slave-holding president and Founding Father. Charlottesville will now mark Liberation and Freedom Day on March 3, the day U.S. Army forces arrived in the city in 1865.

Charlottesville has been grappling publicly for years with how to tell its history of race and discrimination. Those efforts intensified after white nationalists gathered in the city in 2017 for a rally that descended into deadly violence.

The legacy of Jefferson, the nation’s third president, author of the Declaration of Independence and founder of the University of Virginia, has been a component of that ongoing debate.