A Republican-led effort to restore a Confederate statue featuring a black “Mammy” at Arlington National Cemetery was narrowly defeated late Thursday afternoon.
Restoration of the Reconciliation Memorial was introduced by Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) but did not pass in a vote of 192-230.
Two dozen Republicans voted against restoring the monument. No Democrats voted in favor of restoration.
The statue, first unveiled in 1914, features a woman with a crown of olive leaves standing on a pedestal. The woman holds a laurel wreath, a plow and a pruning shear. At her feet, a biblical inscription says: “They beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.”
The statue, supposedly designed to represent the American South, includes a black mother holding what is believed to be the son of a white officer, as well as an enslaved man following his owner to war.
Black Mammies were representations of black women seemingly happy with their slavery.
“The caricature portrayed a maternal figure, obese, rude,” said the Jim Crow Museum explains. “She had a great love for her white ‘family’, but often treated her own family with disdain. Although she had children, sometimes many, she was completely desexualized. She ‘belonged’ to the white family, although this was rarely stated.”
Arlington National Cemetery described the Reconciliation Monument as “a nostalgic and mythologized vision of the Confederacy, including highly sanitized depictions of slavery.”
In December 2023, the statue was removed from the recommendation from an independent commission.
Before the statue’s removal, more than 40 House Republicans sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin arguing that the commission overstepped its authority. Clyde led the charge at the time.
The members’ letter argued that the monument “does not honor or commemorate the Confederacy; the memorial commemorates reconciliation and national unity.”
But House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (DN.Y.) on Friday criticized House Republicans for the latest restoration effort, calling out fellow New York Reps. Anthony D’Esposito, Marc Molinaro and Brandon Williams , who voted to approve the project.
All three Republicans face an uphill battle in their re-election campaigns. The outcome of your elections could determine which party controls the House of Representatives.
“What tradition do extremist MAGA Republicans – including Rep. D’Esposito, Rep. Molinaro and Rep. Williams – uphold? What Confederate tradition are you defending? Is it slavery? Rape? Kidnap? Jim Crow? Lynching? Racial oppression? Or all of the above?” Jeffries said during a Friday morning news conference at the Capitol.
“Which is exactly the Confederate tradition that MAGA extremist Republicans in 2024 are defending,” he added. “And you want to use the National Defense Authorization Act to delay the progress that has been made in the United States of America? It’s shameful.”
Michael Lillis contributed to this article
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
