Suppose the bronze statue of General Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson at Wyman Park had been sitting quietly down the street from your house since about 1948 ("No more foot-dragging on Confederate monuments," Sept. 15). It's an interesting location — on the border between a quiet residential neighborhood, the property of an art museum, the southern end of the main campus of a famous university and the west end of a park (which sits down in a "dell" and out of sight of the monument).
While it's true there was a group of Sons of Confederate Veterans or whatever they call themselves having a little ceremony to mark the birthdays of Lee and Jackson, they haven't been around in at least a couple of years.
Now suppose you walked by there now and then and sat on a nearby bench sometimes — not to pay any kind of homage to Lee or Jackson but because the rest of your walk home is all uphill. You would note that most of the time you were alone there with cars whizzing by on the adjacent street. Sometimes, you'd see two or three other people strolling by — usually with a dog. In other words, for as long as you've lived there, the area around the monument wasn't exactly a beehive of activity. There are no government buildings nearby, nor flags of any kind. It just sits there. And frankly, I've never seen anyone pay much attention to it.
Given the recent uptick of racial tension in our country, would you ask your mayor to remove this monument? If you did, would you wonder where the money would come from to remove it and transport it elsewhere? Would you wonder if that money might better be spent elsewhere, like on education and programs to improve racial relations in your city?
What would you put in its place? Or would you just leave a gaping hole and an empty granite slab? Would you have any regret at all about removing a long standing piece of rare equestrian art from your neighborhood? Do you think maybe we would all just forget that there was a Civil War that ended 150-plus years ago if that monument ceased to be? Would its removal really improve tensions in your city? Or would it further divide people of differing views if the two long dead soldiers and their horses just disappeared?
As you might have guessed, I tend to like that monument right where it is. Why? Well, I'm no Confederate. I'm originally from upstate New York. My ancestors fought and died on the Union side. But I do think Lee and Jackson have something to teach us — if only as a reminder of the devastating folly of war. Leave it be and use it as a tool to begin more sorely needed dialogue to bring us together, not drive us apart.
And besides, it is art!
Lauri Levy, Baltimore