Now this is getting interesting. Unlike Corey Robin, I am not willing to give the Princeton protesters all the credit for this, but the debate is unquestionably a good thing.
Annette Gordon-Reed (the famous biographer of Sally Hemings) has an interesting take at the end of the article: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/11/23/thomas-jefferson-next-target-students-who-question-honors-figures-who-were-racists ------------------------snip Paul Finkelman, author of *Slavery and the Founders: Race and Liberty in the Age of Jefferson <https://www.routledge.com/products/9780765641465>* (Routledge), said that he couldn't judge how colleges should deal with Jefferson statues, but he said the history is clear. "I don't think you go around honoring people for behavior that was truly awful, and Jefferson's relationship with slavery and race was truly awful, even from his own times," Finkelman said. "This is not looking back from now," he stressed. [...] Annette Gordon-Reed, a professor of history and the Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard Law School, is the author of two books -- *Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy <http://books.upress.virginia.edu/detail%2Fbooks%2Fgroup-2650.xml?q=gordon-reed>* (University of Virginia Press) and *The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family <http://books.wwnorton.com/books/978-0-393-06477-3/>* (W. W. Norton) -- that have criticized previous generations of scholars for ignoring evidence or downplaying the story of Jefferson's relationship with one of his slaves. Via email, Gordon-Reed said that she didn't think Jefferson statues should be taken down. Further, she said it is important to distinguish Jefferson (whatever his record on slavery) from figures associated with the Confederacy or Jim Crow, for whom there may not be any reason for honors on campuses to continue. "I understand why some people think his statues should be removed, but not all controversial figures of the past are created equal," Gordon-Reed said. "I think Jefferson’s contributions to the history of the United States outweigh the problems people have with aspects of his life. He is just too much a part of the American story … to pretend that he was not there. This conversation about statues and symbols really got going with calls to take symbols and figures from the Confederacy out of the public sphere. Then it shifted to every famous person who was an enslaver and/or white supremacist, basically letting the Confederates off the hook. That's a lot of people to be disappeared. There is every difference in the world between being one of the *founders* of the United States and being a part of group of people who fought to destroy the United States." She added: "It’s a line-drawing function, but we draw lines all the time. Statues and buildings for Jefferson Davis and John C. Calhoun? No. Statues and buildings for Thomas Jefferson? Yes, but with interpretation and conversations about all the meanings of his life and influences -- good and bad. The words of the Declaration of Independence that blacks have made use of over the years and Monticello, his home, a slave plantation that has now become a site for substantive discussions about race and slavery, exist together as a part of our history, just as he was. He drafted the declaration, he was a president, he founded a university, he championed religious freedom. The best of his ideals continue to influence and move people. The statues should be a stimulus for considering all these matters at William & Mary and the University of Missouri."
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