, Columnist
What Confederate Monument Builders Were Thinking
Southern leaders made it clear that statues were part of their early-20th-century effort "to establish white supremacy."
Contested.
Photographer: Hal Yeager/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
On the afternoon of May 27, 1901, the clerk of the Alabama Constitutional Convention read out a letter to the delegates written by educator Booker T. Washington and signed by 23 other state black leaders. A couple of the delegates had objected to hearing it, as it was already past adjournment time, but Thomas W. Coleman, a Princeton-educated lawyer from the town of Eutaw, urged that they all stay and listen:
And so it was. The gist of the message was that: