Symbols of ugly history, not pride
Confederate monuments are being taken down across the United States, sometimes with fanfare, sometimes in the dead of night, sometimes with agonizing bloodshed.
The argument is over a specific kind of art, and I don't mean sculpture. The argument is over civic monuments.
Louisiana, Virginia, Maryland _ in these places the elimination of Confederate monuments cannot happen soon enough. Some claim that removing them erases history. That's backward. Erecting them does.
Take the statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Va. Its planned removal erupted last week into violent, white supremacist domestic terrorism. Henry Shrady, the artist, was a talented but largely self-taught sculptor. (When he died before finishing the statue, Leo Lentelli completed it according to Shrady's designs.) As a fitting bookend, Shrady also was the
