First it was the Confederate battle flag, but Democrats aren’t content to stop there, with two prominent lawmakers calling for statues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis to be removed from public display.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters at a news conference Tuesday that Davis’ statue doesn’t belong in the Capitol building in his home state of Kentucky.
Fox News reporter Chad Pergram tweeted that McConnell thinks it should be moved to a history museum.
McConnell notes that KY State Capitol has statue of Jefferson Davis. Thinks it should be moved to KY history museum.
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) June 23, 2015
Last year, former Kentucky state Treasurer Jonathan Miller started an online petition to replace the statue with one of another famous Kentuckian: Muhammad Ali.
Although Davis’ days in Kentucky’s state house may be numbered, it’s unlikely that Ali’s statue will soon grace the Capitol’s rotunda—the last new statue in that building was erected in 1968.
In Texas, anti-Confederate fever is also spreading.
Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Democrat from San Antonio, rallied students in support of removing Davis’ statue from the campus of the University of Texas at Austin, the Texas Tribune reported Monday.
Castro signed a petition along with over 1,000 students asking school president Greg Fenves to remove the statue from the school’s south mall. While Fenves hasn’t committed to comply with the petitioners’ wishes, he is “taking the issue very seriously,” university spokesman Gary Susswein said.
Momentum has been building recently, with the school’s elected student assembly overwhelmingly approving a resolution in March calling for the removal of Davis’ statue from campus.
In April, the statue was vandalized when someone spray-painted “Davis Must Fall” on its base, according to the Tribune.
In the petition’s comments, Castro wrote “UT should part with the divisive message represented by the Confederate [statues] featured prominently on campus. It’s time to move them to a museum or consider replacing them with a general Civil War memorial plaque to all Americans who died.”
Conservatives reacted to the Jefferson Davis purge on Twitter:
@ChadPergram We think McConnell should be moved to The Old Senators Home. — Ricky Babaloo (@RickyBabaloo) June 23, 2015
Should UT remove the campus Jefferson Davis statue? Sure, as long as they also remove Woodrow Wilson, who re-segregated the US military.
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) June 23, 2015
@iowahawkblog Can we get racist Andrew Jackson removed from the $20 while we’re at it? — Remie (@Canb0nly1) June 23, 2015
@iowahawkblog @bayareahausfrau Wilson? Hell the Texas founders are on the chopping block soon. Bye, Same Houston, you Raza-hater. Bye, Alamo
— Douglas (@DesScorp) June 23, 2015
@iowahawkblog Remove the Custer houseas well. We don’t need to know about anything pre-LBJ. — Corduroyalist (@Corduroyalist) June 23, 2015
One tweet suggests a novel idea for American education:
@iowahawkblog @JammieWF Keep ’em all and start teaching history!
— Sissy Willis (@SissyWillis) June 23, 2015
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