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'Strategic' or 'misguided'? Toppling of statues sparks latest debate on Madison protests
Wisconsin State Journal ^
| 6-25-20
| Kelly Meyerhofer
Posted on 06/25/2020 8:07:05 AM PDT by SJackson
From the Pain and protest: Madison responds to the police killing of George Floyd series
Protesters tore down two historic statues outside the Capitol on Tuesday evening one that has come to represent womens rights and the other honoring an abolitionist leaving many people wondering what purpose their removal served to advance the Black Lives Matter movement.
The destruction comes amid a national reckoning over police brutality and systemic racism toward Black people following the death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody. Local leaders in other cities have removed statues of Confederate soldiers and other symbols of slavery and racism in recent weeks.
In Madison, a group of several hundred protesters on Tuesday evening took down a replica of Forward, a statue of a woman with her right arm extended. Protesters also decapitated and dragged into Lake Monona a statue representing Hans Christian Heg, a Wisconsin abolitionist who died in a Civil War battle.
Both statues have since been recovered, and a Monona woman who raised money in the 1990s to create the Forward replica pledged Wednesday to again raise funds for repairs and reinstallation of the statue.
Protesters defended their toppling of the statues, framing their actions as a strategic move to force politicians and the public to pay attention to problems and inequities that have persisted for centuries.
But University of Connecticut professor Manisha Sinha, a leading authority on the history of slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction, called the removal of these particular statues misguided because it opens the door for Confederate statue supporters to ask where the line in historical recognition will ever be drawn.
Taking down statues of people who represent values we want to uphold is not the way to go, she said. These were purely disruptive acts.
Sinha, who has been outspoken in the need to take down statues of white supremacists, said protesters have a right to be angry over racial injustice. The events in Madison, however, indicated to her that protesters were less focused on any symbolism associated with knocking down a particular statue and more interested in channeling their anger over the arrest of a Black activist onto whatever landmark was found within the vicinity.
Mark Elliott, a University of North Carolina-Greensboro historian who studies the Civil War, said most of the Confederate statues coming down in recent years have been hotly debated for decades. Neither of the Madison statues appeared to be symbols of white supremacy, he said, which makes protesters overnight removal of them more risky in terms of sustaining momentum for the Black Lives Matter movement.
Part of what spurred the anger and destruction on display Tuesday evening is a refusal by state and local officials to listen to demonstrators calls for change, according to protester Ebony Anderson-Carter.
While Anderson-Carter acknowledged the Forward and Heg statues stood for good causes and movements, those in power are not taking that same stand with the Black Lives Matter movement. Having those statues prominently displayed in Madison creates a false representation of what this city is, she said.
I just hope some people realize that sometimes you need to talk to people in a language that only they understand, Anderson-Carter said. Stop trying to make us speak to you in your language.
Protester Micah Le told The Associated Press in a text that the two statues paint a picture of Wisconsin as a racially progressive state when in reality slavery has continued in the form of a corrections system built around incarcerating Black people.
The fall of the statues is a huge gain for the movement, though I think that liberal and conservative media outlets will try to represent last night as senseless violence rather than the strategic political move it really was, Le wrote.
Col. Hans Christian Heg of the 15th Wisconsin Infantry was fatally wounded fighting for the Union Army on Sept. 19, 1863, and died the next day. This statue of Heg was erected in 1926.
Heg immigrated as a child to Waukesha County from Norway in 1840, according to the Wisconsin Historical Society. He spent two years out West during the California Gold Rush before returning to Wisconsin to manage the family farm following his parents death.
Heg joined the Republican Party in the 1850s and became active in local politics. When elected state prison commissioner, he promoted vocational training instead of punishing prisoners.
After the Civil War started, Heg was appointed colonel of the 15th Wisconsin Infantry. He and his group of largely immigrant soldiers trained at Camp Randall in 1861 and arrived in the South the following year. In one winter battle, Heg lost more than 100 men and his horse was shot out from under him, leading a general to call Heg the bravest of the brave.
Heg and his troops were outnumbered by the Confederacy during a battle in Chickamauga, Georgia, in 1863. A shot to the stomach led Heg to bleed out and die amid his fight to end slavery.
The other statue represents the state motto, Forward. It was cast by a Madison woman, Jean Pond Miner, to represent devotion and progress during the height of the Progressive movement.
Wisconsin women raised money for the creation of the statue, which Miner finished in 1893 as part of a commission to create art representative of her native state.
For a century, Forward stood on Capitol Square, but by 1995, she could no longer endure the outdoor elements, according to the state Historical Society.
Monona resident Camille Haney, who at the time had an office on the Square that overlooked the statue, decided it was worth saving. She called up Wisconsins first lady, Sue Ann Thompson, wife to Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson, for help.
The two teamed up to raise nearly $100,000 in less than a year, Haney said, receiving donations across the state, including from the Green Bay Packers.
The original statue moved into the state Historical Societys headquarters once the replica was placed at the end of State Street, where it remained for more than two decades until Tuesday evening.
Haney was stunned by the news of Forward falling down. She called Thompson, who she said agreed to revive their makeshift fundraising committee. Thompson did not return a message seeking comment.
Its unclear how much repairs will cost and what the timeline is like for Forward to return, Haney said, but she knows Wisconsin women will once again salvage the statue.
TOPICS: News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS:
Taking down statues of people who represent values we want to uphold is not the way to go. These were purely disruptive acts Excuse me, the insurrectionists don't want to uphold American values, rather to destroy them. Replace the Union General and suffragette with statues representing the criminals true values, like the classic in Seattle.
Return the statue in VA to it's proper place.
1
posted on
06/25/2020 8:07:05 AM PDT
by
SJackson
To: SJackson
Why ‘fundraise’ when you should be ‘doxxing and fining.’
To: SJackson
Has a single MSM journalist now conceded that President Trump was RIGHT when he pointed out that some good people trying to defend the statutes in Charlottesville wanted to protect ALL statues because once “you” begin, where does it end?
Donald Trump predicted that they would come after statues, monuments, and memorials to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
the Democrats got a lot of mileage by deliberately misquoting this press conference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmaZR8E12bs
Today the MSM is telling us that there are good people among the rioters and looters from coast to coast.
3
posted on
06/25/2020 8:17:23 AM PDT
by
a fool in paradise
(Joe Biden- "First thing I'd do is repeal those Trump tax cuts." (May 4th, 2019))
To: a fool in paradise
Today the MSM is telling us that there are good people among the rioters and looters from coast to coast.
"Good people" who stand by and watch the mob burn, loot, destroy and harm people
are no better IMO than the three Minneapolis cops who stood by and watched Derek Chauvin kneel on a neck for eight minutes
At some point you must have the courage of your moral convictions.
4
posted on
06/25/2020 8:29:37 AM PDT
by
Buckeye McFrog
(Patrick Henry would have been an anti-vaxxer)
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