Newsmax Wednesday, 10 June 2020 09:55 PM
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants Congress to take down 11 Confederate statues from the United States Capitol.
On Wednesday, Pelosi sent a letter a requesting the removal to a congressional panel that handles Capitol displays, which is led by Republican Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo, and Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.
“The halls of Congress are the very heart of our democracy,” Pelosi wrote. “The statues in the Capitol should embody our highest ideals as Americans, expressing who we are and who we aspire to be as a nation. Monuments to men who advocated cruelty and barbarism to achieve such a plainly racist end are a grotesque affront to these ideals. Their statues pay homage to hate, not heritage. They must be removed.”
In a statement, Lofgren wrote that she supported the move, while Blunt has yet to comment.
“Indeed, what the Confederate statues in the National Statuary Hall Collection represent is anathema to who we are as a Congress and a country,” Lofgren said. “I agree that the Joint Committee and Architect of the Capitol should expediently remove these symbols of cruelty and bigotry from the halls of the Capitol.”
In 2016, lawmakers removed an assortment of state flags from a hallway after complaints of the confederate symbol on the Mississippi flag.
