Should Lincoln’s Statues Come Down?

In recent months, statues honoring Confederate figures like Jefferson Davis, are coming down around the South — either by protestors or local governments. But it’s not just Confederate statues. Now, calls have expanded in some places around the country to include other figures in American history with a more complicated past. Princeton University announced recently that it would remove President Woodrow Wilson’s name from its school of public policy. In Boston, the city removed a statue of Abraham Lincoln, which depicts him with a freed Black man at his feet. Activists at the University of Wisconsin in Madison are also calling for the removal of an Abraham Lincoln statue.

The 21st speaks to the author of the petition to remove the Abraham Lincoln statue, and two experts on Abraham Lincoln and American history.

Guests:

Angela Peterson, a Recent graduate from UW-Madison, started a petition to remove Lincoln statue 

Michael Burlingame, the Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at University of Illinois Springfield and author of Abraham Lincoln: A Life, The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln and Lincoln and the Civil War

Manisha Sinha, Draper Chair in American History at the University of Connecticut

Prepared for web by Zainab Qureshi

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