Old statues of Confederate generals are slowly disappearing – will monuments honoring people of color replace them?

  With most of the legal challenges resolved after the violent Unite the Right rally, and the statue of Robert E. Lee removed from its lofty pedestal in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia, local lawmakers in December 2021 voted to do the unimaginable – donate the statue to the local Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.

  In turn, the nonprofit cultural group quickly announced its plan to melt down the bronze statue and use it as raw material for a new public artwork. What the group plans to build is still an open question, but it clearly will not be another statue honoring the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, the idea that slavery was a benevolent institution and the Confederate cause was just.

How conspiracy theories in the US became more personal, more cruel and more mainstream after the Sandy Hook shootings

  Conspiracy theories are powerful forces in the U.S. They have damaged public health amid a global pandemic, shaken faith in the democratic process, and helped spark a violent assault on the U.S. Capitol in January 2021.

  These conspiracy theories are part of a dangerous misinformation crisis that has been building for years in the U.S.

Frank Earnest is the chief of ‘heritage defense.’ The question is, whose heritage?

  Even before neo-Nazi James Alex Fields Jr. was convicted of first-degree murder, no one disputed he drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia during the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in August 2017.

  And neither the prosecution or the defense disputed that Heather Heyer died on impact. Watching video of that moment in court last week, one juror clapped his hand over his mouth — but Fields showed no emotion.

  Fields was among the white supremacists who were in Charlottesville to protest the city’s plan to remove giant statues of Robert E. Lee and Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson from its parks.

The Little Rock Nine – and America – 60 years later

  Sixty years before Colin Kaepernick took a knee, nine black teenagers in Little Rock, Arkansas, took a stand.

  The pictures have since become iconic: Elizabeth Eckford stoically walking as a white mob jeers and shouts at her; Terrence Roberts and Carlotta Walls LaNier clutching textbooks under the cover of armed soldiers; Minnijean Brown arriving at Little Rock Central High School, escorted by the 101st Division of the Airborne Command.

Gene Policinski: Speaking your mind, when free speech has consequences

  Some people like Donald Trump and say nice things about him.

  Some people don’t like Donald Trump, and some say things about Donald Trump that are unkind, hurtful and downright insulting. Some people say those things on social media.

  And sometimes people who like Donald Trump respond to those comments.

  All of that is fine in free speech terms. And all of that pretty well sums up the tempest in a TV teapot over ESPN host Jemele Hill tweeting last week that the president was a “bigot” and a “white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself with other white supremacists.”

Richard Cohen: President Trump must push back against the hate he's unleashed

  As events in Charlottesville last month reflect, President Trump’s incendiary rhetoric has energized the white supremacist movement.

  By signing the bipartisan congressional resolution against hate, he now has committed himself to undo the damage he has caused. We hope Congress will hold his feet to the fire and ensure that he lives up to his commitment.

LaShawn Y. Warren: Race and the creditability of the church

  Since President Donald Trump came to office in January, many have expressed outrage, disappointment, and sheer disgust over his inability to exercise moral leadership. At no time has that deficiency been more evident than in the wake of the August white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Instead of offering words to catalyze healing and unity, the president made racially inflammatory remarks that not only pandered to the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and other terrorist hate groups, but also drew moral equivalence between hate groups and anti-racist demonstrators. Ideally, the nation would look to the office of the president for moral clarity. It is increasingly clear that this leadership will not come from President Trump.

Lawmakers must protect protesters — not the drivers who hit them

  Marissa Blair was walking down Fourth Street when the car struck. Her fiancé, Marcus Martin, had just a split second to push her out of its path.

  When she got up, all Blair could see of Martin was his bloodied baseball cap lying on the ground, she told The New York Times.

  “It terrified me,” said Blair.

  She found Martin, his leg broken. But the couple couldn’t find the friend who had been with them on Fourth Street — 32-year-old Heather Heyer.

Hank Sanders: Senate Sketches #1576: What President Trump did is so dangerous

  What President Trump did is so dangerous. It’s dangerous for me. It’s dangerous for you. More importantly, it’s dangerous for this country. Let me tell you why. But first let me remind you of what President Trump did.

  On August 11, hundreds of Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, white nationalist, etc., marched near the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. They held high flaming torches as they chanted Nazi slogans used by German Nazis during the 1930s and 40s. “Blood and Soil!” they yelled. “Jews will not replace us!” they yelled. They also shouted slogans such as “Heil Trump!” and “Make America Great Again.”

It took Charlottesville for Silicon Valley to stand up to hate

  Silicon Valley has a reputation as a liberal place, but it was a critical partner in the deadly “Unite the Right” rally that cost a counter-protestor her life.

  Hate groups of all stripes used their websites to advertise their participation in the rally. They turned to social media to urge their followers to join them. And they used services like PayPal and Patreon to fund their invasion of Charlottesville, Virginia.

  Such partnerships may soon be a thing of the past. By Monday morning of last week, service providers had begun to pull the plug on hate groups and individual extremists alike.

Charlottesville shows that states must amend their open-carry laws

  We’ve all seen the pictures from Charlottesville.

  Peaceful protesters being met with men carrying military-style weapons. Many of those unarmed were probably intimidated. I certainly think I would have been.

  What did the scene represent? Were we looking at a clash of grand constitutional values, a clash between the cherished First Amendment right to protest peacefully and the revered Second Amendment right to bear arms? Or were we looking at something much more mundane?

  The answer is the latter. Our Founding Fathers didn’t tie us into a constitutional knot. Our state legislatures, bowing to pressure from groups like the NRA, did so not too many years back.

Confederate monuments expert explains how we memorialized white supremacy

  In the wake of the neo-Nazi attacks in Charlottesville, officials in several Southern states have renewed calls to remove Confederate monuments from public spaces.

  This week, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) called for the removal of all Confederate monuments in North Carolina. Mayor Jim Gray (D) of Lexington, Kentucky, announced the removal of two Confederate statues from a historic courthouse in the city. And officials in Florida and Maryland made similar announcements.

Gene Policinski: ‘Freedom’ is best response to white supremacy hatemongers

  Let them march in Charlottesville. Let them speak.

  Hate-propagating neo-Nazis and bottom-dwelling white supremacists — the dregs of our open society — have and should have First Amendment rights to speak and march in public.

  We need to see them for what they are: a disappointing collection of the disaffected; some parading around in silly costumes, often ignorant of the real meaning and history of the symbols they display, carrying torches meant as much to intimidate as to illuminate.

Trump again refuses to take responsibility for a resurgence of white nationalism

  After the deadly clash between hundreds of white supremacists and counter-protesters yesterday in Charlottesville, Virginia, President Trump called for Americans to “come together."

  He used similar words in his victory speech in the wee hours of Nov. 9, even as white supremacists began to celebrate.

  The problem is that Trump’s words are hollow.

  His calls for the country to unite will continue to be meaningless as long he fails to take responsibility for his role in dividing it – something he conspicuously avoided again during his press conference yesterday.