[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 131 (Friday, July 24, 2020)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E682]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           TESTIMONY ON THE ROBERT E. LEE STATUE REMOVAL ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. ANTHONY G. BROWN

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, July 24, 2020

  Mr. BROWN of Maryland. Madam Speaker, I include in the Record. the 
following testimony, per Mitch Landrieu, who testified in support of my 
bill, H.R. 970, the Robert E. Lee Statue Removal Act, at the House 
Committee on Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, 
and Public Lands legislative hearing on July 21, 2020. The testimony 
addresses Confederate statues and symbols on public lands.

       I want to thank Chair Haaland, Ranking Member Young, and 
     the other Members of the Subcommittee for the opportunity to 
     discuss the important matter of Confederate symbols. It is a 
     pleasure to be with you this morning.
       My name is Mitch Landrieu I am the president and founder of 
     a social impact organization called E Pluribus Unum, named 
     after our nation's founding motto. Our goal is to help 
     advance racial and economic equity in the South. I also 
     served as mayor of the city of New Orleans from 2010 to 2018 
     and Louisiana's Lieutenant Governor from 2004 to 2010.
       As many of you know, as mayor of New Orleans, I removed 
     four Confederate statues from public land, with a process 
     that started in 2015 and ended in May of 2017, with the 
     removal of a Robert E. Lee statue from the city's most 
     prominent circle.
       That process helped reintroduce historical facts and a more 
     proper telling of the history of how and why many of these 
     statues or monuments were put up in the first place.
       The historic record is clear, most statues of Confederate 
     leaders were erected not just to honor these men, but as part 
     of the movement which became known as The Cult of the Lost 
     Cause.
       The Lost Cause had one goal--through monuments and other 
     means--rewrite history to hide the truth, which is that the 
     Confederacy was on the wrong side of humanity. It sought to 
     continue to oppress Black Americans.
       James W. Loewen, a retired University of Vermont professor, 
     and the author of Lies Across America: What Our Historic 
     Sites Get Wrong, put it succinctly in a Washington Post oped: 
     ``The Confederates won with the pen (and the noose) what they 
     could not win on the battlefield: the cause of white 
     supremacy and the dominant understanding of what the war was 
     all about. We are still digging ourselves out from under the 
     misinformation they spread, which has manifested in our 
     public monuments and our history books.
       According to the work of the Southern Poverty Law Center, 
     there are some 700 Confederate memorial monuments and statues 
     erected well after the Civil War. There are over 1000 
     streets, buildings and other markers named after Confederate 
     leaders. According to their research, ``two distinct periods 
     saw a significant rise in the dedication of monuments and 
     other symbols. The first began around 1900, amid the period 
     in which states were enacting Jim Crow laws to disenfranchise 
     the newly freed African Americans and re-segregate society. 
     This spike lasted well into the 1920s, a period that saw a 
     dramatic resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, which had been born 
     in the inunediate aftermath of the Civil War. The second 
     spike began in the early 1950s and lasted through the 1960s, 
     as the civil rights movement led to a backlash among 
     segregationists. These two periods also coincided with the 
     50th and 100th anniversaries of the Civil War.''
       In summary, the South lost the war and a group of people 
     got together and decided that they were going to adorn the 
     country with monuments that revered those who fought on 
     behalf of a cause that was lost, which they wanted to make 
     seem noble. It was a propaganda campaign of epic proportions.
       You see, these statues are not just stone and metal. They 
     are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These 
     monuments purposefully celebrate and perpetuate a fictional, 
     sanitized Confederacy; ignoring the death, the enslavement, 
     and the terror that it actually stood for.
       The truth is they were fighting for the right to own and 
     sell black human beings.
       History cannot be changed. It cannot be moved like a 
     statue. What is done is done. The Civil War is over, and the 
     Confederacy lost. We are all the better for it.
       But in this, the 20th year of the 21st century, we should 
     not debate whether the United States of America should revere 
     the Confederacy. It is self-evident that these men did not 
     fight for the United States of America. They fought to 
     destroy it. They may have been warriors, but they were not 
     patriots.
       Ultimately, as a country, we must grapple with a simple 
     notion--there is a difference between remembrance of history 
     and reverence of it.
       To literally put the Confederacy on a pedestal is an 
     inaccurate recitation of our full past, it is an affront to 
     our present, and it is a bad prescription for our future. It 
     ensures that all that our fellow brothers and sisters once 
     fought to end will still continue.
       As President George W. Bush said at the dedication ceremony 
     for the National Museum of African American History & 
     Culture, ``A great nation does not hide its history. It faces 
     its flaws and corrects them.''
       Members, you now have an opportunity to do your part 
     correct this past. This is an important first step.
       Let me close with a plea to your humanity.
       I noted in a speech upon removing the monuments that a 
     friend asked me to consider these monuments from the 
     perspective of an African American mother or father trying to 
     explain to their fifth grade daughter who Robert E. Lee is 
     and why he is revered with a statue.
       Can any of you look into her eyes and convince her that 
     Robert E. Lee is there to encourage her? Do you think she 
     will feel inspired and hopeful? Do these monuments help her 
     see a future with limitless potential? Have you ever thought 
     that if her potential is limited, yours is too?
       We all know the answer to these very simple questions. When 
     you look into this child's eyes is the moment when the 
     searing truth comes into focus. This is the moment when we 
     know what is right and what we must do.
       We cannot continue to walk away from this truth. We must 
     remove these Confederate symbols that dirty the soil of our 
     beloved country. Once that is done, we can better confront 
     the racist systems that have divided us by design for 
     generations and get us closer to that more perfect union we 
     all aspire to be.
       Thank you.
       Mitchell J. Landrieu
       Founder and President, E Pluribus Unum
       Former Mayor, City of New Orleans (2010-2018)