Rewriting our history

Editorial: Rewriting our history

By Herald Staff23 hours ago

In the days following the fall of the Soviet Union, statues of Stalin suddenly vanished as history was being rewritten - not acknowledged and accepted, but rewritten.

Aren't we better than that?

And so the statue of Jefferson Davis being wrapped up and hauled away at the University of Texas at Austin was strangely familiar. Today we come not to praise the former president of the Confederacy, but to recognize that he too was a part of this nation's history - a painful part, yes, but are we to cart off statues of all of those who ended up on the wrong side of history?

"This is an iconic moment. It really shows the power of student leadership," said Gregory Vincent, university vice president for diversity in an interview with The Statesman.

What a horrifying thought!

The statue had, of course, been vandalized any number of times. So its removal apparently sends the message to students that, what, lawlessness is its own reward? Isn't that just swell!

Davis will disappear for the next 18 months or so and eventually be relocated, officials say, to a renovated Center for American History.

Then there's poor Woodrow Wilson, the nation's 28th president, and by all accounts one of the nation's most progressive Democrats. It may be that Wilson's statue was just in the wrong place at the wrong time - opposite that of Davis and removed for purposes of symmetry, school officials contend.

But then again there is a movement afoot - aided and abetted by the writings of Boston University historian William R. Keylor - to label Wilson a racist and perhaps, therefore, also subject to exile.

According to Keylor, "Wilson was a loyal son of the old South who regretted the outcome of the Civil War. He used his high office to reverse some of its consequences."

The university insists it is looking for another outdoor location for Wilson. For now he has simply been "disappeared."