D.C. Taskforce Suggests Changes to Monuments with Links to Slavery

The report doesn't go into detail about how “re-contextualizing” would work, but there have been recent recommendations that plaques be added to the monuments to Jefferson and Washington, explaining that their namesakes were longtime slave-owners.

Bowser, in a Tuesday tweet, said she looked forward to reviewing the recommendations from the task force, which she had tasked with “evaluating public spaces to ensure the namesake’s legacy is consistent with #DCValues”.

Bowser has very little power to control what happens on federal land. She and the D.C. Council fought for years to have a statue of former Confederate general Albert Pike removed; they were unsuccessful because the statue sits on federal land.

In June, hundreds of protesters toppled the Pike statue while officers from the Metropolitan Police Department looked on and kept their distance. 

(Writer: Ashraf Khalil) 

Source: https://apnews.com/57aaa0d49686726c9494d8d71fe8206f