"Removing all Confederate statues would be the first step in sending the message that we are no longer honoring white supremacy at a societal level. We've already seen progress in Tampa, Florida, and New Orleans, Louisiana, where Confederate symbols are being "
Absolutely
Washingtom, et al lived in a slave owning/trading society as did the founders of industrial Britain - they bowed to its inevitability as did Britain
Washingtom
"Washington expressed other concerns over slavery's implications for the nation. In 1797, Washington is reported to have told a British guest: "I can clearly foresee that nothing but the rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our union"
"Jefferson"
"In his writings on American grievances justifying the Revolution, he attacked the British for sponsoring the slave trade to the colonies. In 1778, with Jefferson's leadership, slave importation was banned in Virginia, one of the first jurisdictions worldwide to do so. Jefferson was a lifelong advocate of ending the trade and as president led the effort to criminalize the international slave trade that passed Congress and he signed in 1808, a year after the British did the same thing"
Lincoln
"Lincoln often expressed moral opposition to slavery in public and private.[1] Initially, he expected to bring about the eventual extinction of slavery by stopping its further expansion into any U.S. territory, and by proposing compensated emancipation (an offer Congress applied to Washington, D.C.) in his early presidency. Lincoln stood by the Republican Party's platform of 1860, which stated that slavery should not be allowed to expand into any more territories. He believed that the extension of slavery in new western lands would block "free labor on free soil", and he also wanted a peaceful, enduring end to slavery. As early as the 1850s, Lincoln was politically attacked as an abolitionist, but he did not consider himself one. "
The men who these statues stood for slavery and, as Joe pointed out, are used espectabilise colour prejudice - many were erected to honour just that
The have far more to do with the present thna they do of the past
Jim Carroll