Rep. Lee: Remove Capitol’s Confederate statues
As the movement to remove Confederate statues grows around the country, a Bay Area Democrat is bringing the debate to the U.S. Capitol.
Rep. Barbara Lee ( DOakland) introduced a bill Thursday to remove Confederate statues from the Capitol building, and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) introduced the same legislation in the Senate.
Twelve statues in the Capitol depict people associated with the Confederacy, including Gen. Robert E. Lee and President Jefferson Davis. They’re part of the National Statuary Hall Collection, 100 statues of “illustrious” Americans that encircle the opulent Rotunda and are arranged around the capitol building. Each state contributed two figures, and they now stand guard over swarms of tour groups and Congressional aides rushing between the House and Senate chambers.
Both of Mississippi’s offerings — Davis and Col. James Z. George — were part of the Confederacy. South Carolina sent — cal- vary officer Wade Hampton and Vice President John C. Calhoun whose ideas influenced the Confederacy.
Lee’s bill, the Confederate Monument Removal Act, would take down statues of anyone who voluntarily served the Confederacy. The sculptures would be sent back to their respective states, or to the Smithsonian Museum if the states don’t claim them, within 120 days after the bill passes.
“These statues should not be honored — they are symbols of hate,” Lee said Thursday. “These are statues of men who kept my ancestors in chains.”
The bill allocates $5 million to the Architect of the Capitol and the Smithsonian for the removal and care of the statues.
The new scrutiny on the statues in the heart of Congress comes amid a larger debate over the place of Confederate icons in America. After a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, led to three deaths last month, several cities around the country have removed their own Confederate statues or renamed Confederate monuments.
Lee said she’s been annoyed by the presence of the 12 statues since she first came to the Capitol to work for former Oakland Rep. Ron Dellums in the 1980s. Now, she said, “the country is ready to really start addressing issues of racism and bigotry and discrimination.”
President Donald Trump has criticized the push to take down Confederate statues. “Was George Washington a slave owner? So will George Washington now lose his status?” he asked at a press conference addressing the Charlottesville violence. “You’re changing history, you’re changing culture.”
While there aren’t any Republican supporters yet, the bill, if it gets to the House floor, could force GOP members of Congress to take a tricky vote on a politically charged issue. Lee said she’s talking with Republicans and expects some to support her bill.
“It’s an offense to Americans, regardless to the party, to display and honor and celebrate individuals who fought to keep other Americans in slavery,” she said.
The statue collection was started in 1864, and current law allows states to select statues of people “illustri- ous for their historic renown or for distinguished civic or military services such as each State may deem to be worthy of this national commemoration.” The Architect of the Capitol office did not respond to a request for comment on the bill.
State legislators decide on which statues to send, and in recent years, some states have switched out Confederate figures. In 2009, for example, Alabama replaced a statue of Confederate officer Jabez Curry with one of Helen Keller.
California’s two statues are of former President Ronald Reagan and Father Junípero Serra, who founded the first Spanish missions in California. Serra is a controversial figure in his own right over abuses of Native Americans by Spanish colonists. Lee said she wanted to leave any discussion of California’s statues to state legislators.
There are no statues of African-Americans among the collection, although several statues of black civil rights leaders are on display elsewhere in the Capitol.
Statues in the U.S. Capitol of people associated with the Confederacy:
• Calhoun, U.S. vice president who supported slavery and whose ideas influenced the Confederacy — South Carolina
• Davis, president of the Confederacy — Mississippi
• George, Confederate colonel — Mississippi
• Hampton, Confederate calvary officer — South Carolina
• John Kenna, U.S. Senator and Confederate soldier — West Virginia
• Lee, Confederate general — Virginia
• Uriah Milton Rose, inf luential lawyer who recorded Confederate war dead — Arkansas
• Edmund Kirby Smith, Confederate general — Florida
• Hamilton Stephens, Confederate vice-president — Georgia
• Zebulon Vance, U. S. Senator, governor, and Confederate military officer — North Carolina
• Joseph Wheeler, Confederate cavalryman — Alabama
• Edward Douglas White, U.S. Senator and Supreme Court justice and Confederate soldier — Louisiana