In Virginia, Confederate statues come down
This article is an adaptation of our weekly History newsletter that was originally sent out on July 12, 2021. Want this in your inbox? Sign up here.
By Debra Adams Simmons, HISTORY Executive Editor
The city of Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday removed two equestrian statuesfrom its public square that for nearly a century honored Confederate leaders Robert E. Lee (pictured above) and Stonewall Jackson (below). Hours later, City Council decided to take down two statues deemed offensive to Native Americans.
The Confederate statues had been on borrowed time since the summer of 2017 when a Unite the Right Rally spiraled into violence. Dozens were injured in that August rally and Heather Heyer, an anti-racism protester, was murdered when neo-Nazis and white supremacists clashed with counterprotests over the probity of the statues.
“Taking down this statue is one small step closer to the goal of helping Charlottesville, Virginia, and America, grapple with the sin of being willing to destroy Black people for economic gain,” Mayor Nikuyah Walker said.
A little more than a year after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the U.S. continues to take a hard look at symbols of racial oppression. Public confederate iconography erected during the Jim Crow era, long after the Civil War ended, continues to stoke urgent conversations about America’s past and about how the nation’s history regarding race and slavery is taught.
The February issue of National Geographic explored the issue in depth, asking the following questions: “What stories demand a more complete and honest retelling? How should history be taught and more fully contextualized?”
The city of Richmond, Virginia, once the capital of the failed 1861-65 southern rebellion, continues to host a towering statue of Lee on its iconic Monument Avenue. But Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has already ordered the statue removed, once all legal challenges by the statue’s proponents are exhausted. Again, it is seemingly just a matter of time before Lee joins the other Confederate luminaries already stricken from Richmond’s landscape.
Since a white gunman killed nine Black people at a church Bible study in Charleston, South Carolina, on June 17, 2015, hoping, in his words, to spark a race war, Confederate symbols have been removed from the nation’s landscape with increasing urgency, and efforts have grown to commemorate events from neglected American history.
The Southern Poverty Law Center reported last month that more than 300 Confederate symbols have been removed, including 170 monuments since the church massacre.
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TODAY IN A MINUTE
Vaccination push: With Indigenous Americans facing higher mortality rates from COVID-19, four photographers—Nat Geo Explorers Sarah Stacke, Brian Adams, Russel Albert Daniels, and Tahila C. Mintz—set out to document the impact of the pandemic on U.S. communities. COVID’s impact on Indigenous communities is compounded by generations of deep-seeded mistrust and trauma. Doubts and skepticism linger but some communities have made strides in vaccination rates, Nat Geo reports. The story, written by Sheyahshe Littledave, was supported in part by the National Geographic Society's COVID-19 Emergency Fund for Journalists. Learn more about the Society’s support at natgeo.com/impact. (Above, Mahto in the Woods, 19, of the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota, who has chosen not to get vaccinated.)
The Caribbean is in the midst of escalating turmoil: In Haiti, investigators are piecing together the motive behind the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse. In Cuba, thousands took to the street on Sunday in protests across the island calling for freedom, COVID-19 vaccinations and more. National Geographic will be offering perspectives on both those developments in coming days.
The first quarantine: The first people to be quarantined–more than 500 years ago–had great views from what is present-day Dubrovnik, Croatia. The consequences if they broke quarantine weren’t so pleasant, however. "Torture, or cutting your nose or your ears off," Ivana Marinavić, of the city’s Lazarettos (onetime quarantine stations), tells NPR. When more tourists begin arriving in this ancient walled city, they can visit the Lazarettos, pretend they're in quarantine—and walk out with their noses intact.
C-h-a-m-p: Zaila Avant-garde made history when she correctly spelled “murraya” to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee. But Zaila says spelling is just a side hobby. The 14-year-old from Harvey, Louisiana, is a basketball prodigy who owns three Guinness world records for dribbling, bouncing, and juggling multiple basketballs simultaneously and hopes to perhaps one day coach in the NBA, ESPN reports.
A Picasso in the closet: A Maine resident received a shock recently after finding a rare work by 20th-century master Pablo Picasso in a relative’s closet. The 16- by-16-inch piece of paper, signed and dated 1919, had sat in the closet for 50 years. The art sold at auction for more than $150,000, the Boston Globe reports.
Lavish 2000-year-old building found in Jerusalem: A grand building that hosted public functions in ancient Jerusalem is reopening to the public 2,000 years after its construction. The newly excavated structure, located next to the Israeli capital’s Western Wall was probably used to welcome dignitaries on their way to visiting the city and the Second Temple, the Jerusalem Post reports.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
On Lake Tanganyika: More than 10 million people around Lake Tanganyika, Tanzania, rely on this cargo boat for food, work, water, and transportation. This ship, featured in a March 2018 issue of National Geographic, plies the waters of the world’s second largest freshwater lake by volume. This image recently appeared as part of our popular Photo of the Day series.
Related: Why some of the world’s lakes are drying up
THE BIG TAKEAWAY
An illegal gold strike in Brazil: Attacks against Indigenous chiefs have grown as miners have trespassed upon tribal lands to extract gold from the Amazon. (Pictured above, an illegal strike in the Munduruku Indigenous Territory in Pará state, where nearly 30 tons of gold are extracted illegally every year.) The government is moving to weaken efforts to stop the miners. “Indigenous leaders believe their communities are facing the most perilous moment since Brazil returned to democracy in the 1980s,” Scott Wallace writes for Nat Geo. “Death threats and intimidation are daily occurrences in some areas.”
IN A FEW WORDS
Corruption was hardly a new concept; it was only that America, dreaming for centuries … was late to the dark awakening.
Sam Wesson, Author, From The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood
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LAST GLIMPSE
Queen Elizabeth’s maritime hero: Sir Francis Drake's audacious attacks on Spanish lands in Europe and around the world made him England's favorite, but his storied career had a darker side, including links to the early slave trade, Nat Geo reports. (Pictured above, Samuel Lane’s 19th-century portrait of Drake).
Today's newsletter was curated and edited by David Beard and Monica Williams. Jen Tse selected the photographs. Have an idea or link to a story you think is right down our alley? Let us know at david.beard@natgeo.com. Thanks for reading.
