Probably not the last one taken out
each state gets 2 statues there
Jefferson Davis (Mississippi) is particularly egregious.
VA is a blue state now but almost all other SE states are very red so it may be a while before others are gone.
It’s not that uncommon for states to trade them out to make room for more recent notables, sometimes not for the better. The California GOP used their Schwarzenegger interlude to replace the inoffensive anti-Confederate Starr King with Ronald Reagan.
Here in NC they are going to add Billy Graham and don’t think they have picked who has to go.
You just want to ask Mississippians, “Is this it? The bumbling political leader of a failed insurrection and someone named James Zachariah George? These are the two most notables you have to offer?” Hell, maybe they are.
Ok. I was going to ask what the hell a general Lee statue was doing in the US Capitol. That’s like putting a Timothy McVeigh statue at the Murrah Federal building.
Charles or Medgar Evers would be an appropriate replacement. Beyond that, you have William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Elvis Presley, B.B. King, Jimmy Buffett, Tammy Wynette, Conway Twitty, Oprah Winfrey, Jim Henson, Jerry Rice, and Walter Payton.
Right. And come to think of it, Mississippi ditched their Confederate-based flag this year so they may be in a mood to shake things up a bit with who represents them, too.
The thing is, a lot of the states do insist in that it should be notable political or humanitarian leaders if they are going to be in Statuary Hall, so it and its satellite spaces tends to be heavy on “state founders” types as honorees. You see that whole array of basically variation on the theme, 19th-century Guy in a Frock Coat Standing Stiffly Looking Serious, and can hardly tell one from another.
By contrast Jack Swigert (CO) is in his space suit. And Kamehameha (HI) makes all those old stiff white dudes look very much like, well, old white stiffs (plus he’s gigantic).
Well, i hear that the current President of the Confederacy will be taken out of DC on January 20th.