Written in Stone 2020

 I have been immensely interested in the many debates surrounding statues, flag designs, and the naming of buildings, universities, and even lakes in the past several months.  The Duke University Press published in September 2018 a second edition of my 1998 book Written in Stone:  Public Monuments in Changing Societies.  2018 seems like far more than two years ago, even if one takes into account the fact that I was adding to my 20,000 word "afterword" until literally the day the book went to print in June of that year.  What follows is a slightly edited version of comments I contributed to the Web site of the Duke University Press, where, incidentally, the Press is offering, through August 31,  a 40% discount on the book with coupon code STONE40.  

This fall, for the third time, I will be teaching a “reading course” at the Harvard Law School on “Monuments and Memorialization.” Needless to say, among the readings have been (and probably will continue to be) my Duke University Press book Written in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Societies.  Originally published in 1998, the Press published a second edition in 2018, with what turned out to be a new afterword of some 20,000 words, together with a new cover—a picture of Robert E. Lee’s statue being removed from Lee Circle in New Orleans—and a variety of other new photographs of controversial monuments. When the second edition was initially planned in 2016, the thought was that I would write a new afterword of about 5,000 words and that the new edition would be published in early 2018 (at the latest). As John Lennon famously sang, though, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”  Among the things that happened between initial plan and publication in September 2018 was the August  2017 March on Charlottesville, Virginia, and the ensuing taking down of many monuments, particularly in the states of the Confederacy. That march was inspired, in many ways, by the reaction to the earlier massacre in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, which led, for example, to the taking down of the Confederate Flag from the grounds of the South Carolina Capitol.  The Charlottesville City Council had voted to remove statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, decisions that generated both applause and protest.

And, of course, at the present time the entire country is experiencing the aftermath of the murder by a Minneapolis police officer of George Floyd in Minneapolis, including the renewed attention on monuments (and building names) across the country. For example, Lake Calhoun, in Minneapolis, named after John C. Calhoun, the leading defender of the slavocracy in his long career in American politics, was renamed, though not without controversy, Bde Maka Ska, described by the Minneapolis Star Tribune as “its original Dakota name.

Given recent events in Minneapolis; Richmond, Virginia; Bristol, England; and Brussels, Belgium, to name only a handful of recent locales where monuments have come down or places renamed, some friends have encouraged me to prepare a third edition of Written in Stone. Putting to one side whether the Press would be receptive, so soon after the second edition, there is a very good reason for not doing so at the present time: Such an edition, at least at this time, would have to be published in a loose-leaf version! As I prepare my syllabus for the course this fall, I find myself revising it almost literally every day, as new actions are undertaken and arguments presented. Just this past week, for example, the Mississippi legislature at long last agreed to remove the Confederate Stars and Bars from its state flag, even as now appears quite likely that Washington and Lee University, in Lexington, Virginia, will drop Robert E. Lee’s name.  No doubt, though, some students, both African-American and white, might at least wonder why the slaveowning George Washington deserves continued honor.  Bret Stephens, in the New York Times, offers one thoughtful answer:  George Washington did attempt to make us, overall, a "more perfect Union," whatever his acknowledged faults, whereas no one could make that argument about Robert E. Lee or Jefferson Davis.  [UPDATE:  I have now read Charles Blow's truly mind-blowing piece in the Times, entitled "Yes, Even George Washington," that I believe that anyone wishing to comment on this posting has a duty to read.  Among other things, I regret to say, it exposes the absolute vacuity of Joe Biden's effort to provide a way of distinguishing between those whose monuments deserve to remain in place and those who don't.  We are rapidly moving beyond a "mere" focus on those who took up arms between 1861-65 to secede from the United States.  Biden would presumably preserve monuments, say, to John C. Calhoun and James Vardaman, for starters. And how does he explain to Native Americans why Andrew Jackson deserves his place of honor literally across the street from the White House?   He should have learned from his romantic evocation of the days he worked with the viciously segregationist James Eastland to think more deeply before committing yet one more gaffe.  This is one of the reasons that his supporters, of whom I am one, hope that he basically remains in the basement as much as possible.]

Most notably, perhaps, Princeton University, after deciding in 2018 to retain Woodrow Wilson’s name for its eminent School of Public Affairs, announced that it would drop it. Princeton President Christopher L. Eisgruber wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post explaining his own change of mind. Eisgruber took note of “Wilson’s genuine achievements,” not to mention his centrality to the development of Princeton because of his service as one of Eisgruber’s predecessors. Wilson, therefore, “is a far different figure than John C. Calhoun or Robert E. Lee, people whose pro-slavery commitments defined their careers and who were sometimes honored for the purpose of supporting segregation or racism. Princeton honored Wilson without regard to, and perhaps even in ignorance of, his racism.” Eisgruber now believes that “ignorance” was “precisely the problem. Princeton is part of an America that has too often disregarded, ignored and turned a blind eye to racism, allowing the persistence of systems that discriminate against black people….”  There is nothing innocent about naming programs or buildings. “When a university names its public policy school for a political leader, it inevitably offers the honoree as a role model for its students. However grand some of Wilson’s achievements may have been, his racism disqualifies him from that role.” It is no longer possible to “disregard or ignore racism when deciding whom we hold up to our students as heroes or role models…. Our commitment to eliminate racism must be unequivocal, and that is why we removed the name of Princeton’s modern-day founder from its School of Public and International Affairs.”

Fortunately, Written in Stone, especially in its expanded second edition, pays extended attention to a number of analyses of policies about monuments that were prepared at a variety of universities, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Duke, and the University of Texas, as well as by a special committee appointed by the Mayor of New York. I also treat at length an absolutely remarkable speech by former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu explaining his decision to remove a number of Confederate statues from the city’s public space, including the aforementioned one of Robert E. Lee.  So, self-servingly, I think there is good reason to read the 2018 edition even if, to some extent, it has been overtaken by events.

At the present time, there are two central issues at the forefront of the controversy over monuments and memorialization. First, who exactly deserves the kind of public honor that is conveyed, say, by a statue in front of a major public building? In New York City, for example, a statue of Theodore Roosevelt in front of the New York Museum of Natural History that was explicitly considered by the Mayor’s Committee, which recommended against removing it, has now been slated for removal because it demeans African- and Native-Americans in placing them in a decidedly subordinate position to Roosevelt atop his horse. Many statues of Christopher Columbus are being removed, not to mention, of course, the myriad of statues honoring those who took up arms against the United States in 1861-65 and vigorously advocated the maintenance of white supremacy (including lynchings) thereafter. Oriel College at Oxford is now under renewed pressure, discussed in the 2018 Afterword, to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes from its entrance, given the vital role he played in British imperialism in Africa.  (There are also pleas to rename Rhodes House at Oxford and, indeed, to remove Rhodes from the name of what are undoubtedly the most prestigious scholarships in the world today.)  Some of these examples seem quite easy to resolve.  Others, as with Roosevelt, Columbus, or Woodrow Wilson, appear considerably more difficult.

But, especially to a lawyer like myself, a second important issue involves the process by which decisions to remove (or maintain) statues or to rename buildings or, as in Minnesota, lakes, should be made. Even if one heartily approves, for example, of attempts to remove the slaveowning and anti-Native American Andrew Jackson’s statue from Lafayette Park, in Washington, one can, at the same time, be disturbed if that decision, in effect, is made by demonstrators (or, as some people might wish to describe them, a “mob”). It is not simply that a structured process would give people an opportunity to make a variety of conflicting arguments, with the final decision made by bodies ranging from a city council to the voters in a local referendum; rather, it is almost certainly also the case that the losers who might lament the demotion of their own “heroes” from the public square might at least feel somewhat mollified if they felt they had a fair opportunity to make their arguments and they lost “fair and square.”

In any event, it is clear that there will be ample opportunity in the future to continue to debate monuments and memorialization.  Once one becomes aware of the extent, as Eisgruber rightly notes, that these are not "natural" occurrences in the world, but, instead, deliberate attempts by various elites or social movements to mold public consciousness as to who should be admired or emulated, then the conversations--whether at a seminar table or in the streets--are never ending.  This is, of course, especially true in pluralistic--some would say "fragmented"--societies that have become more and more open to the articulation of often conflicting viewpoints about heroes and villains and, therefore, the allocation of public honor and respect.