New Orleans is removing its monuments to slavery; should Boston do the same?

great! let's get rid of all historical references! victory!

There's a fair but of difference between a building named after a notable figure and a monument to someone who is notable because they rebelled against tge feseral government to preserve slavery.

There's too much of a tendency to judge these people outside their time period. History education has clearly failed when this kind of thinking seems so common.

History is a cruel mistress. But it's also important to remember that history shouldn't be depicted as good vs evil. It should be used as a device to depict the way human nature can err from time to time and how we can learn from that. Hell, I wish that most of my fellow inner-city youths could look into the likes of Crispus Attucks and how his martyrdom kickstarted our history

This is a perfect opportunity to educate ourselves about our flaws. A lot of people pass thru that building every day, and some of them would stop to read this history if it's displayed prominently. (And which I did not know until today)

http://historyofmassachusetts.org/faneuil-hall-was-built-with-slave-money/

By changing the name, we would lose some of that opportunity.

I'm not particularly attached to the name, but it is what it is, and merely erasing it seems too easy.

Every person who was successful enough to have something named after them has done some messed up stuff to get to that level. So if you don't want to offend anyone, you better start naming stuff like license plates.

had slaves, lets take him off the dollar bill. Jefferson too, and all the rest of the founding fathers. I'm not some kind of pro-slavery bigot, but where do we draw the line here? No one is holding Klan rallies at Winthrop Square or putting the guys face on Neo-nazi banners. I am not a big Michael Moore fan but I did watch his "Where to invade Next" documentary about policies and laws in other countries that America could implement to better our society. There was a great segment about Germany and how they DON'T try to scrub the Nazi era from their past, they face it and use it as a learning tool. They teach it in schools and have reminders in their cities and towns, such as old anti-semetic signage and placards for the Jewish families in front of the houses they used to occupy before being sent to death camps.
I am no fan of the confederacy but I don't think demolishing Stone Mountain in Georgia is a viable answer to combating bigotry. Yes some will be "inspired" by that stuff, to others it is a sobering reminder, and something to point to when teaching their kids.

Now, let me get my internet flame-retardant suit on. OK GO!

Should we change the name of the state too?

The Greek, Romans, Christopher Columbus, Washington, Jefferson, and Muhamed owned slaves. Are we going to demolish all the iconography, architecture, and monuments related to them?

But doesn't there have to be a demarcation between people who participated in slavery vs. people who actively went to war to preserve the institution?

Tell Mr Peterson we will try to rename it Random Whiney Douchebag Hall in his honor.

Yawkey Way, ahem. No need to have Tom Yawkey's name on a public street when he was a renowned racist who was the last owner to integrate in MLB. A blight that is often used by some as proof of Boston being "the most racist city." Despite the fact that if you're using an odd historical anecdote, you could just as easily use the fact the Braves were one of the first integrators, and the Bruins and Celtics broke the barrier in their respective sports.

Surprised that the Confederate memorial on George's Island didn't get a mention.
http://cwmemory.com/2013/07/21/united-daughters-of-the-confederacy-in-bo...

He forced his slaves to rape each other so he could sell the kids.

Can we all at least agree to pronounce Faneuil's name incorrectly! We all say fan-U-il...so let's end this recent movement to drop the U sound because that's how he pronounced it?
We don't care that he and the French pronounced it fannel.

and all of the battlefield monuments at places like Bull Run, and Gettysburg? What should become of the monuments to the Southern regiments and battalions who fought and field there? Each one has their own monument. Should we remove monuments from national parks as well?

And while we are at it - Universities should get ready for a name change - if not a total restructuring. Look at this report regarding Harvard and its history with slavery...

It reports that three Harvard presidents owned slaves; that slaves worked on campus as early as 1639; that among the first residents of Wadsworth House (built in 1726) were two slaves, Titus and Venus; that slave labor often underwrote the success of Harvard’s early private benefactors; and that the connection between College donations and slave-related industries persisted until the Civil War.

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/11/harvard-and-slavery/

sad that this is where we are...

I do not see these memorials to confederate soldiers as memorials at all. I.e. to remember the figures depicted in them. Many were not erected until well after the civil war and, rather, were erected well into the early 20th century in the full assault of Jim Crow. They were not so much memorials as they were reminders to blacks in the South that the Civil War had changed almost nothing as far as who was in charge. These statutes were erected in a time when black people were prevented by Jim Crow laws from voting, in areas with high concentrations of black people, none of whom had any say in whether or not to erect the monuments. I see there removal less as a repudiation of the figures depicted in the memorials, or what they might have done during their lives, and more of a repudiation of the vestiges of the system that erected them and the long witheld vote of black people on whether to put them up that they were deprived of in the first place. By contrast, I do not believe any of the memorials to Washington, Winthrop, etc. were erected for these types of purposes, but rather were erected as true memorials to the people depicted in them. For example, although Washington was a slave owner, we did not erect statues of him to remind people about slavery. This does not mean that we should not examine their flaws and acknowledge the role that slavery and bigotry played in Boston and elsewhere in the North. But I do not see the same motivation to consider removing memorials in Boston.

Read New England Bound by Wendy Warren to find more names of early Colonialists in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and other parts of New England who had off-shore plantations in Jamaica and who also practiced chattel slavey. You'd be surprised, and many of these people have statues, too, not to mention that Brown University was founded by slave owners, not too different from The University's (aka Jefferson's university) origins. I am so reminded of how the Taliban went after the Buddhist statues of Bamiyan and how ISIS has destroyed temples and artifacts in Palmyra, Syria, just because they can. We've seen this before, and the implication now is that leaving statues up is idolatrous because they attract the faithful vs. those who say, let history, for ill or good, stand as a teacher.

I'm a bit sad, for example, that the statue of Lenin in Seattle is coming down. We need one somewhere in the world to remind us that he really did exist since he has been all but excised from Russian history. If we don't remember, then we won't repeat mistakes, right?

Moreover, Jefferson was not a traitor (like Lee). Ask King George and Tory Americans. Their slant is slightly different. Yes, he and George Mason (Bill of Rights) produced glorious documents that give all of us the rights we share to go back and forth at each other in this forum or in person. Let us not be blind though. African and American-born slaves, Indians (and women) were not `equals in the minds of these founders. At, least though, amendments to the Declaration of Independence were allowed, possibly (and I say possibly because how can I really know), these "oversights" could be taken care of after the slave-master generation had passed on.

And yes, John Winthrop (and his son in off-shore plantation), John Cotton, and even Cotten Mather owned slaves and used them for profit making and life-style issues even before the building of the Cotton Gin. Survival of New England amongst "colonialist" adventurers depended on slave economies and chattel slavery. MANY prominent Americans descend and/or are related to these New England colonialists, just as the do from Jefferson, George Mason, and yes, Robert E. Lee ( General George Marshall, Patton, Adlai Stevenson, Muhummad Ali, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter, Brad Pitt, Teddy Roosevelt, Joanne Woodward, et.al. ? And the point. Perhaps the most sanctimonious among us re. the statues are alive because of the people we now decry. Irony of Ironies.

Lee's statue could have been taken down during the tenures of Obama or Carter or George Bush. All in the fullness of time, though, and LIKELY for political expediency. The timing IS interesting.