Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi has decided to remove the portraits of 4 of her predecessors who had served in the Confederate Army.
As reported by NPR:
Pelosi directed the clerk of the House of Representatives to remove the portraits on June 19 to mark the day in 1865 when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, with news that President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation. That day came more than two years after Lincoln signed the order freeing enslaved people — a day now observed as Juneteenth.
“As I have said before, the halls of Congress are the very heart of our democracy,” Pelosi wrote in the letter requesting the removal. “There is no room in the hallowed halls of Congress or in any place of honor for memorializing men who embody the violent bigotry and grotesque racism of the Confederacy.”
The four House speakers whose portraits will be removed are Robert Hunter of Virginia, who was the speaker of the House from 1839 to 1841; Howell Cobb of Georgia, who served as speaker from 1849 to 1851; James Orr of South Carolina, who served as speaker from 1857 to 1859; and Charles Crisp of Georgia, who served as speaker from 1891 to 1895.”
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