The activist class, not satisfied with removing Confederate memorials, is now coming for Christopher Columbus. The Italian explorer, who never set foot on American soil, became enmeshed in our historical legacy thanks to national outreach to the once reviled Italian American diaspora.

In contrast, many Confederate memorials were actually erected half a century or more after the Civil War, as part of an overtly racist movement specifically against recognizing or honoring the rights of black Americans. Columbus was elevated as a means of integrating and accepting into American society a large and discriminated-against immigrant group.