Source: CNN
(CNN) More than 150 years after the Civil War ended, the Confederacy is memorialized with statues, monuments and historical markers across the United States.
Some say they mark history and honor heritage. Others argue they are racist symbols of America’s dark legacy of slavery.
A nationwide debate surrounding this issue has been underway since Dylann Roof killed nine African-Americans in a Charleston, South Carolina, church in 2015 in an effort to “start a race war.” And it flared up again after white nationalists marched last weekend to protest the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a counterprotester was killed amid violent clashes between demonstrators.
The National Register of Historic Places does not keep a detailed list of Confederate memorials. In 2016, the Southern Poverty Law Center identified 1,503 Confederate “place names and other symbols in public spaces” across the nation but admitted the study was “far from comprehensive.” Some Civil War monuments in the South, such as at battlefields, do not have pro-Confederate symbolism.
Categories: America, Racism, The Muslim Times, USA