Nancy Pelosi orders removal of Confederate House Speaker portraits from Capitol Building

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi orders the pulling down of Confederate House Speaker paintings at the halls of the Capitol.
• The Democrat leader reportedly instructed the removal of portraits as the Confederate-era represents a period of racism and injustice.
• Memorials and statues of Confederate figures are either removed or vandalized in several states at the height of protests over Floyd’s killing.

On Thursday, as per the directive of Nancy Pelosi, portraits of four House Speakers during the Confederacy were removed from the galleries of the nation’s Capitol.

The current lower house speaker ordered that the paintings be pulled down to mark the celebration of  Juneteenth, an annual June 19 holiday remembering the end of slavery in the U.S. as reported by The Wall Street Journal.

In her to the chamber’s clerk, Pelosi described the halls of Congress as the center of the United State’s democracy, noting there is no place at the building and anywhere else honoring the men who represent the violent injustice and racism of the Confederacy.

The drawings represented the images of former Robert Hunter of Virginia, who served as a speaker from 1839 to 1841, Georgia’s Howell Cobb, from 1849 to 1851; South Carolina’s James Orr from 1857 to 1859, and Georgia’s Charles Crisp who seated as a speaker following the Civil War from 1891 to 1895.

The said paintings are displayed at spots in the Capitol that are usually not opened to the public, which includes the house speakers’ lobby and the House chamber.

When requested to comment about the pulling down of the portraits, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy replied that the incumbent speaker has the authority to do so.

Pelosi also sought to remove a dozen other statues from the Capitol memorializing figures in the Confederacy. She, however, does not have the power to order such. 

The Democrat leader’s move was following incidences of removal or vandalism to Confederate monuments and shrines in many states during rallies ignited by the death of George Floyd while under the custody of Minneapolis cops on May 25.

Source: New York Post