We Are Not Makers of History. We are Made By History. --MLK Jr.

When I was growing up, I lived in a small town–very small.  We had about 1500 people total.  My graduating class in high school was 76!  My dad was Chief of Police and after my parents moved, I stayed with Memaw in this small town.  We had one traffic light, three grocery stores, a hardware store, two gas stations, and many churches, but no monuments.  We did have a water fountain in the middle of town, but it was named “The Water Fountain”.  Our schools were named after the town–elementary school, middle school, and high school.  Most of the businesses were named after the town too, including a tiny library and an even smaller museum.  Our streets were named simply, and as you might expect:  Oak, Elm, Old Mill, etc.  We had no highways but my Memaw lived on a farm and her dirt road was called Stoney Pointe Highway (no idea why it was named that:).

I live in the suburbs of Chicago.  Chicago has many monuments, everywhere.  It has a lot of parks and these parks are adorned with monuments of people, scenes, and artifacts from history.  We name our schools after people–Abraham Lincoln, Casmir Pulaski, and Thomas Kelly.  Even our expressways (we don’t call them highways or freeways–they are most definitely NOT free) are named after people.  We don’t say I-290, we say the Eisenhower.  We don’t say I-55, we say the Stevenson.  We also have the Kennedy, DuSable, Jane Bryne, Barack Obama, Edens, and Dan Ryan.  It’s what we do!

Back in 2020, we started losing our minds because of the pandemic and the shutdown.  We were working from home, as our kids did “schooling” right next to us.  Thousands of people were dying every day.  We couldn’t leave the house, go to the movies, or visit friends and family.  We were scared, confused, and angry.  Then when the death of George Floyd happened, we became almost homicidal.  A lot of good came from that psychotic break and some bad.  In my mind, one of the things that was good AND bad was the dismantling and removal of the monuments.

This topic has come up again with President Trump.  He would like to put the monuments back.  I understand his thinking and I think many do.  We want to celebrate our history and the people who shaped who we are.  We have recognized these individuals for their accomplishments and for some, their sacrifices.  Are we ashamed of them now in our current time?

This is where something is good and bad.  When the dismantling first started happening, I was shocked.  Why pick on the statutes at this stage of the game?  All of a sudden, Thomas Jefferson is bad??  We are embarrassed of George Washington, the Father of our Country?  What is going on?

Then, after the shock, I had time to sit with this new event in our ever-changing lives of the pandemic.  I started listening to what people had to say.  Some of the monuments that were removed were mostly Confederate soldiers.  The biggest reason for the Civil War was the topic of slavery.  There was a renaming of a high school, from Robert E. Lee H.S. to the name of the town’s high school.  You might ask why?  The Civil War was a big part of our country’s history.  Robert E. Lee was an outstanding general for the Confederate army.  Why can’t we celebrate these moments in our history?

Well, we can’t “celebrate” those points in history.  Robert E. Lee led the army to continue slavery.  George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were huge slave owners.  Can you imagine being an African-American student, who is literally here because his/her ancestors were sold into slavery (where inimaginable things happened to them), and walk into your high school everyday, and your high school is named after those very same people who enslaved your family?  What must that feel like?  How demoralizing would it be?  I would feel sad, depressed, frustrated, and angry–EVERY DAY–walking into my school.  What if you were an African-American teacher in that same school?  Where is our compassion?  Our empathy?  Our humanity??  

Other monuments removed were Christopher Columbus (huge slave owner of Indigenous people), various monuments of mayors of towns who were racist and had bigotry views (Frank Rizzo and Orville Hubbard), and a few slave auction blocks (yeah, that is self explanatory).  

So, do we just take these monuments, the naming of schools and expressways, and just forget about them?  Throw out the monuments?  Rename everything?  Try to ignore our history?

No, but we do need to do two things–use the right words and obtain balance.  We are not “celebrating” our history; nor are we “ashamed” of our history.  History is just that–history.  We are such a young nation and we made a lot of mistakes, just like other nations.  We just remember it more because it is “recent” (black women were truly allowed to vote in my lifetime–what the fuck!!).  We are not celebrating, we are acknowledging.  We are not ashamed, we are wiser.  Everyone knows that history is important.  It is how we learn.  It is how we know who we are.  But we do not need to immortalize it where it can hurt people constantly.  

Stop having monuments of people.  Everyone has something bad in their past, it is just a matter of time before someone finds it.  I love monuments but let’s make them balanced.  What does that mean?  Actually, we started doing it.  Some of our newest monuments depict the different wars and conflicts that everyday people fought in.  There is no one hero.  There are many.  We made a memorial from 9/11.  These newer monuments are scenes from our history that were significant.  

Stop naming our schools after people.  Again, there is bad in everyone’s history.  Maybe New York City has it right.  Their public schools are named just that:  PS 46 or PS 77.  PS means Public School.  Name our schools after the town they reside in or be very creative in their names, like businesses.  How about “Academy of Scholastic Achievement” or “Eyes on the Future”?

Second part of the balanced picture–what to do with monuments right now that are not appropriate in parks or schools?  Museums are your best bet.  We need to acknowledge our history by keeping these monuments.  After all, the men and women that they depict were a huge part of our history and we need to still honor them.  Not enough space in current museums?  Then make new ones.  Right now, there is a shift in real estate–especially in big cities.  People are still working from home.  The federal government is downsizing.  All of this is creating many empty buildings downtown.  Companies and businesses can create a nonprofit by opening up museums for these monuments and memorials.  Then people can CHOOSE to visit these monuments if they wish or ignore them.  Don’t you just love freedom?

We need to honor our history, not celebrate it.  We need to respect the players in our history but not revere them.  We need to learn from our past and not ignore it.  But above everything else, we need to have compassion and empathy for those that are offended by our history because it is still very recent.  We are a young nation and still learning but let us never forget our mercy and grace for everyone.