The Trump administration recently replaced an informational plaque from Arlington National Cemetery that was critical of the Confederacy. The outgoing plaque, which had been installed after a Confederate Memorial was removed from the site, explained that the Confederate sculpture had depicted a “nostalgic, mythologized vision of the Confederacy, including highly sanitized depictions of slavery.” Specifically, it pointed out that the Confederate memorial depicted a stereotypical “Mammy” figure and an enslaved man dutifully following a slaveholder into war. This critical discussion has now been removed from Arlington. Similarly critical information about the Confederate Memorial has also been scrubbed from a Department of Defense webpage that previously discussed the removal of the monument from Arlington.
By contrast to the deleted information, the Trump administration is claiming that its new plaque provides “historical context” for the Confederate Memorial. “Driven by a renewed sense of national unity following the Spanish-American War, in 1900 Congress authorized the reburial of Confederate remains in ‘some suitable spot’ at Arlington National Cemetery,” reads the plaque that has now been installed at the cemetery. Discussion of the controversy surrounding the memorial has been omitted. The Trump-installed plaque also notes that the Confederate Memorial was created by “sculptor and Confederate veteran Moses Ezekiel” on behalf of the Daughters of the Confederacy, while omitting that Ezekiel and his sculpture promoted the discredited “Lost Cause” narrative that painted the Confederacy in a positive light.
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