House Democrats release federal funding bill for the removal of Confederate statues

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Democratic congressmen on the House Appropriations Committee initiated a federal funding bill on Monday that includes the removal of statues and busts of Confederate soldiers and any “individuals with unambiguous records of racial intolerance.”
• Four portraits have already been ordered removed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from the Speakers Lobby of the House of Congress.
• President Trump released an Executive Order to create a “National Garden” of statues for “exceptional fellow citizens who, despite their flaws, placed their virtues, their talents, and their lives in the service of our Nation.”

In the wake of the killing of George Floyd, waves of protests against police brutality and racial inequality have raged over the United States and the world.  Some protesters end up toppling-down statues and busts of people with links to the military and the Confederacy.

In the Speakers lobby in the House of Congress, four portraits of speakers prior to Confederacy times were ordered removed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

The speaker said, “There’s no room in the hallowed halls in this democracy, this temple of democracy, to memorialize people who embody violent bigotry and grotesque racism of the Confederacy.”

This was followed by a federal funding bill authored by the Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee to enable removal of statues and busts of Confederate soldiers or those who have obvious race intolerance.

Four specific statues that they believe should be removed include: Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Rodger B. Taney, for writing the Dred Scott decision that decrees that black Americans “were not intended to be” American citizens; former Democratic senator and Arkansas Governor James Paul Clarke for being a proponent of white supremacy; lawyer, teacher and former North Carolina Governor Charles Brantley Aycock, for being a promoter of segregation and the pillar of the Democratic Party’s white supremacist campaigns; and former vice president of the Unites States, John Caldwell Calhoun, for promoting slavery as “positive good” and beneficial to slaves.

Meanwhile, a “National Garden” of statues will be created as ordered by President Donald Trump and is expected to be finished and opened to the public in 2026.

A White House statement said, “These statues are silent teachers in solid form of stone and metal. They preserve the memory of our American story and stir in us a spirit of responsibility for the chapters yet unwritten. These works of art call forth gratitude for the accomplishments and sacrifices of our exceptional fellow citizens who, despite their flaws, placed their virtues, their talents, and their lives in the service of our Nation.”

Source: New York Post