Should Heritage Be Preserved? Examining Contention Over Confederate Monument Removal

Scholars from various disciplines and legal rulings in different contexts overwhelmingly support the preservation of cultural heritage in its varied forms. In the twenty-first century, it has come to be seen as a human right. In the American context, this raises questions about instances in which cultural heritage icons symbolize oppression. Is such heritage also worthy of preservation? As American racial justice activists seek to prompt a reckoning with the country’s centuries of race-based physical and structural violence, Confederate monuments and memorials have attracted considerable attention. The Southern Poverty Law Center documents over 2200 Confederate monuments around the United States. This chapter examines the academic and policy debates surrounding Confederate monument removal. While a few people argue that monuments should be done away with, most advocates for removal do not necessarily support the destruction of these heritage symbols. Instead, they argue that Confederate monuments should be moved or altered to educate about their racist origins. Thus, the chapter probes the limits of normative and legal arguments around heritage protection. While acknowledging the limitations of such an approach with few incentives for bipartisanship in contemporary national (and often state-level) politics, we argue that the transitional justice concepts of localism, participation, and holism can usefully inform local deliberation around Confederate monuments.