US2 min(s) read
Published 16:29 01 Jul 2021 GMT
The US House of Representatives has voted to remove statues of Confederate generals from the Capitol building.
According to CBS News, this new piece of legislation passed on Tuesday, June 29, with a vote of 285 to 120, with 67 Republicans joining all Democrats voting in favor of the bill.
Take a look at this news report on the vote in the video below:The bill will revise the statute dictating what types of statues are permitted in the Capitol, and will direct the architect of the Capitol to identify any statues of Confederate officials so they can be replaced.
Federal law has it that each of the 50 American states can provide two statues to be placed in the Capitol Statuary Hall.
The Capitol boasts 11 statues depicting Confederate officials, as well as a bust of Roger B. Taney - the Chief Justice who wrote the Supreme Court's infamous Dred Scott decision in 1857, ruling that Black people were not entitled to citizenship.
This legislation states: "While the removal of Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney’s bust from the United States Capitol does not relieve the Congress of the historical wrongs it committed to protect the institution of slavery, it expresses Congress’s recognition of one of the most notorious wrongs to have ever taken place in one of its rooms."
NPR reports that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi commented on the legislation by stating: "The statues that we display should embody our highest ideals as Americans, expressing who we are and who we aspire to be as a nation.
"Monuments to men, or people who advocated cruelty and barbarism to achieve such a plainly racist end are a grotesque affront to those ideals."
Meanwhile, per CBS, Democratic Congresswoman Karen Bass stated: "My ancestors built this building.
"Imagine how they would feel knowing that, more than 100 years after slavery was abolished in this country, we still paid homage to the very people that betrayed this country in order to keep my ancestors in slavery.
"And imagine how I feel, and other African Americans and people of color feel walking through Statuary Hall, and knowing that there are monuments to people who supported, embraced, and fought for the breakup of our country."
