Sir, I just read your article about the Confederate monuments and I mostly agree with you and think the country as a whole should look at each monument and question it's origins, funding and timing of construction before recommending removal.
That said, it troubles me that Baltimore took down four statues, under the cover of darkness, one if which was the 5th Supreme Court Chief Justice of the United States. We need to remember the Supreme Court can and does get it wrong... sometimes unanimously!
Clearly a bunch of statues and monuments are Jim Crow BS but some are not and some are without question works of art. Being a Harvard grad I have no doubt renaming Yale (named after a former slave trader) would make you grin but I'm guessing you understand there has to be a point where we must acknowledge our past and own it.
Could this ongoing effort to sanitize history of offensive confederate monuments in fact be driving a wedge between the races? Why does the left continue to focus on the unimportant when there are so many important things going on in our country that need addressing.
I'm a Minnesota boy who now lives in Maine and I for one think race relations have degraded over the last decade and it saddens me.
I hope that you will continue your research and address the monuments that were erected before or after Jim Crow and those that are truly works of art be respected and if possible left alone.
Warm Regards,
Dave Beemer
Bath, Maine
