There was a group whom a movie was made about in WWII. They were called “The Monuments Men” and their job was finding and saving the art Germany stole.
Its time, in America for us to have chapters of “The Monuments Men” who will, armed if necessary, be on call to answer quickly to their localities to defend such things from the thugs of BLM and ANTIFA. as these Marxists are enemies of the US.
“Frederick Douglass” is a reenactor. I run a small historic site where we occasionally host reenactors and believe me, reenactors know their history up one side and down the other.
Highly educated activist (Foster) to older black re-enactor of Fredrick Douglas (Folden) who was in his way when trying to tear down this Lincoln Statue; “As Folden spoke, Foster asked him to be quiet, saying that older people should have no say in black activism.” Words fail! There was a video of a young, very over-wrought female screaming to the point of almost spitting at another elder black gentleman, demanding his reason for defending this statue. The young, especially in this moment, are RULED by EMOTION, while these elders are very clearly worried about the destruction of their history!
Run 12,000 volts through the statues.
That is a thread that leads straight to the heart of the moral cancer that is consuming the left, and that will destroy this country if it is not excised. Destructive rage is the product. The symptom is ingratitude and indifference to the people in the past whose suffering and sacrifice have moved us forward. The taproot is a blinding arrogance rooted in radical selfishness. This is problem of moral and religious formation.
I have a new rant forming on the subject. I don't have the long form worked out. But the short form is this. Look at an historical event or, as in this case, artifact. What do you see in it? Leftists see only themselves reflected back upon themselves. It is all about them. It is all about their immediate emotional reaction. They are consumed by a suffocating self-righteousness and are bent on the frenzied destruction of anything that falls short of their desperate assertion of moral superiority (which is really a sublimated inferiority complex that leads to a lashing out against better people and things). They look at the Emancipation Memorial and think it is about them, mainly an opportunity to demonstrate their Jacobin zeal through a destructive orgy of virtue signaling.
So: how do we interrupt the frenzy and induce them to pause to consider that the statue is not about them? The statue was commissioned and paid for by freedmen. The bulk of the funds came from black Union veterans. If the statue can be saved long enough to add some appropriate contextualization, it would be appropriate to introduce visitors who haven't been taught history to those whose memorial this is. Here is one take (three cuts from the same movie) -- not the only good material by any means, but it's good enough that I would include it:
That's not the only thing I'd use, but you catch the drift. THESE are the men (and women) who built the Emancipation Memorial. It is THEIR monument. It is the ONLY monument to Lincoln and emancipation that was paid for by the freedmen themselves. THEY had known bondage. THEY had toiled in the fields. THEY had been bought and sold on the auction block. THEY had been beaten and whipped. THEY had fought and bled for their freedom. And THEY revered Lincoln, the Great Emancipator.
The Emancipation Monument is THEIR memorial. To remove it is to silence THEIR voice and erase THEIR legacy. Not one of the demonstrators has the moral standing to cancel the men and women who erected this monument. Not one of them -- and very few of us, if any (and certainly not me) -- is fit to tie the shoelaces of those men and women. To look at THEIR monument and to see only oneself reflected back is contemptible. And to tear down THEIR monument in the name of "black lives matter" would be an obscenity.
I was very glad to see increasing numbers of historically minded black people turning out to defend the monument last night. Some of them have been there all along. I was standing beside a 60-something black woman Thursday night who was very calmly trying to explain things while being shouted down, cursed at, and called a bitch by a 20-something, foul-mouthed female activist. (A virtual replay of the reaction I had gotten immediately before, except for the B-world. No one has called Ole' Sphinx a bitch. Yet. I think I should report the BLM people to the Rainbow Coalition for their extreme sexist stereotyping, but that's an argument for another day.)
Anyone who looks beyond themselves and who can see in a monument the suffering and sacrifices of those who built it should feel profound gratitude. They should want to preserve and protect. They should take inspiration. The moral bankruptcy of those who would tear it down is both pathetic and evil.