House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is urging House Speaker Paul Ryan to work with Democrats to remove Confederate statues from the U.S. Capitol.
“The halls of Congress are the very heart of our democracy. The statues in the Capitol should embody our highest ideals as Americans, expressing who we are and who we aspire to be as a nation,” Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement Thursday. “The Confederate statues in the halls of Congress have always been reprehensible. If Republicans are serious about rejecting white supremacy, I call upon Speaker Ryan to join Democrats to remove the Confederate statues from the Capitol immediately.”
Pelosi, who previously served as House speaker, said she moved a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee out of National Statuary Hall during her tenure and replaced him with a monument of Rosa Parks.
“There is no room for celebrating the violent bigotry of men of the Confederacy in the hallowed halls of the United States Capitol or in places of honor across the country,” the minority leader said.
Each state is allowed to place two statues in the Capitol Building, and the monuments are chosen by state governments.
A spokesman for Ryan, R-Wis., said the decision to move Confederate statues is up to the states, not Congress.
After white nationalist groups clashed with counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Va., on Saturday, local and state officials nationwide have begun to call for Confederate-era monuments to be taken down.
