Lexington KY Removes Confederate Statues

[struggle4progress]

1. Statues put up to rewrite history, needed to come down

BY TOM EBLEN
OCTOBER 18, 2017 9:03 AM

... A bronze statue of John C. Breckinridge, a former U.S. vice president whose last public role was as the Confederate Secretary of War, had stood .. in Lexington’s public square since 1887. More than two decades after the Civil War ended, the United Daughters of the Confederacy .. persuaded Kentucky legislators that it was a good use of $10,000 of taxpayer money.

Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan, a cavalry raider who burned towns and stole horses, was honored nearby with a bronze equestrian statue in 1911, nearly five decades after the Civil War ended. When the memorial group could raise only half the statue’s $15,000 cost, state officials used taxpayer money for the other half ...

s night fell Tuesday, a crane moved Breckinridge onto a truck bed, where he was wrapped in a blue protective tarp. Workers next turned their attention to Morgan. As police surrounded the site, dozens of people gathered to watch, including members of the citizens group Take Back Cheapside ...

... It wasn’t rewriting history, but taking the first steps toward making history more accurate and complete.

http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/tom-eblen/article179459721.html