PBS Poll Says Majority of Americans Favor Leaving Confederate Monuments in Place

Next the Abraham Lincoln Memorial,when and where will it stop?

Washington, D.C.- Emerald Robinson, Political Correspondent

In the wake of the violence in Charlottesville that began in response to a rally protesting the removal of a Confederate monument, a surprising new poll shows that only 27 percent of Americans support the removal of such monuments.

The PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll found that a large majority of Americans, at 62 percent, think that the statues should stay. This information comes in spite of calls to remove even more monuments are being made after the violent clash that left one 32-year-old counter-protestor dead. Al Sharpton said in a PBS interview that he thinks the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., should also be abandoned in light of Thomas Jefferson’s history as a slave owner. Also, included in recent lists is the iconic Mount Rushmore which Vice News’s Wilbert L. Cooper says the U.S. President’s represented there are “problematic” by today’s standards.

Horace Cooper of the group Project 21, which is an initiative of the National Center for Public Policy Research to promote the views of African-Americans, says that the majority represented in this poll includes a large number of African-American men and women who do not want the removal of Confederate monuments. According to Cooper, the monuments serve as a reminder of our history and also as a warning to future generations of the injustices that should never once again plague our nation.
President Trump has remained staunch in the face of criticism on his view regarding the movement to do away with Confederate Monuments saying, “This week it’s Robert E. Lee. I noticed that Stonewall Jackson is coming down. I wonder if George Washington is next week and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You have to ask yourself, where does it stop really?”