WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump decried the rising movement to pull down monuments to Confederate icons Thursday, declaring the nation is seeing "the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart."
Trump's remarks came as the White house tried to manage his increasing isolation and the continued fallout from his combative previous comments on last weekend's racially charged violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.
He also tore into fellow Republicans who have criticized his statements on race and politics after last weekend's racially charged violence in Charlottesville, Va.
Pressured by advisers, the president had taken a step back from the dispute Monday, two days after he had angered many by declining to single out the white supremacists and neo-Nazis whose demonstration against the removal of a Robert E. Lee statute had led to violence and the death of a counter-protester in Charlottesville.
He returned to his combative stance Tuesday — insisting anew that "both sides" were to blame. And then in a burst of tweets Thursday he renewed his criticism of efforts to remove memorials and tributes to the Civil War Confederacy.
"You can't change history, but you can learn from it," he tweeted. "Robert E. Lee. Stonewall Jackson — who's next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish. ...
"Also the beauty that is being taken out of our cities, towns and parks will be greatly missed and never able to be comparably replaced!"
But thee great-great-grandson of Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson said Thursday that the monument to the legendary Confederate general and others in Virginia's capital city were constructed as symbols of white supremacy and should be taken down.
Jack Christian told The Associated Press that he used to be open to the idea that the statues on Richmond's famed Monument Avenue — which memorialize southern Civil War heroes, including Jackson — might be acceptable if context were added to explain why they was built.
However, the racially charged violence in Charlottesville has shown that to be impossible, he said.
"They were constructed to be markers of white supremacy. They were constructed to make black people fearful," Christian said. "I can only imagine what persons of color who have to walk and drive by those every morning think and feel."
Jack Christian and his brother Warren Christian said in a letter to Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney published by Slate on Wednesday that it is "long overdue" for the "overt symbols of white racism and white supremacy" to be removed. The men said they want to make clear that the statue — and their great-great-grandfather's actions — do not represent them.
Michael Shoop, who wrote a book on the genealogy of the Jackson family, confirmed that the men are descendants of the Confederate general.
Jack Christian told the AP that he's pleased the Richmond mayor is now saying the city will consider removing or relocating its Confederate statues. The mayor had previously said he thought the monuments should stay but have context added about what they represent and why they were built.
However, Stoney said a commission of historians, experts and community leaders appointed to study the issue will begin considering the "removal and/or relocation of some or all" of the statues in light of the events in Charlottesville, where white supremacists rallied after the city voted to remove of a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee.
"While we had hoped to use this process to educate Virginians about the history behind these monuments, the events of the last week may have fundamentally changed our ability to do so by revealing their power to serve as a rallying point for division and intolerance and violence," Stoney said Wednesday.
Meanwhile, a descendant of Jefferson Davis said he supports moving the statues to appropriate settings, such as museums.
Bertram Hayes-Davis, a great-great-grandson of Davis, told the AP that he believes that "complete removal is wrong." But the descendant of the Confederate president said that putting the statues "in a historic place where the entire story can be explained is the best outcome for the American public."
Chaos broke out at the Charlottesville rally, which included neo-Nazis, skinheads, Ku Klux Klan members, and is believed to be the largest gathering of white supremacists in a decade. They clashed violently with counterdemonstrators, and after authorities ordered the crowd to disperse, a car plowed into a group of marchers, killing a woman and injuring 19 others. Two state police troopers who had been monitoring the chaos were also killed when their helicopter crashed outside the city.
Read Friday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.