What to Do with a Confederate Monument?
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 14 September 2020
⏱️ 36 minutes
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Summary
Across the South and well beyond, cities and states have been removing their Confederate monuments, recognizing their power as symbols of America’s foundational racism. In the town of Easton, Maryland, in front of the picturesque courthouse, there’s a statue known as the Talbot Boys. It depicts a young soldier holding a Confederate battle flag, and it honors the men who crossed over to fight for secession. It’s the last such monument in Maryland, outside of a battlefield or a graveyard. Casey Cep grew up nearby, and she’s watched as the town has awakened to the significance of the statue. Five years ago, when a resolution to remove it came before the county council, the vote was 5–0 opposing removal. But, during a summer of reckoning with police violence and structural racism, the statue came up for a vote again. Is time finally catching up with the Talbot Boys?
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| 1:11.9 | I'm Dorothy Wickendon. On today's Politics and More podcast, New Yorker staff writer Casey |
| 1:17.7 | Sepp looks at a Confederate monument near her hometown on the eastern shore of Maryland. |
| 1:23.3 | The monument was erected in 1916, and this summer, the county council voted on whether to remove it. |
| 1:32.5 | During the Trump administration, the culture war, as we know it, has gone from a war of words to an openly violent clash, |
| 1:40.2 | with attacks taking place at protests in Portland, New York, and many other places. It seemed to |
| 1:46.1 | start in Charlottesville three years ago, where a woman was murdered in a car attack by a right-wing |
| 1:51.2 | protester. That Charlottesville rally, attended by neo-Nazis as well as pro-Confederates, |
| 1:57.6 | was held in support of a statue of General Robert E. Lee. So a war that ended 150 years ago, |
| 2:04.4 | remembered by monuments that went up a hundred years ago, is now a flashpoint in a bitter |
| 2:09.7 | partisan divide. Our staff writer Casey Sepp grew up in the shadow of one of those Confederate monuments, |
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