Cory Booker Wants Confederate Statues Removed from U.S. Capitol

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) plans to introduce a bill to remove statues from the United States Capitol honoring Confederate figures despite President Donald Trump arguing that removing them uproots American “culture” and history.

“I will be introducing a bill to remove Confederate statues from the US Capitol building. This is just one step. We have much work to do,” the New Jersey Democrat tweeted .

There are at least 10 Confederate statues in the Capitol, distributed between the Capitol Visitor Center and other locations, most notably Statuary Hall, where each state chooses two statues to be on display.

Booker said in a statement to CNN that having to see Confederate statues in a position of honor in a place as public as the Capitol can be “painful.”

“The Capitol is a place for all Americans to come and feel welcomed, encouraged, and inspired,” he said. “Confederate statues do the opposite.”

US Capitol Statues

“Individuals who were treasonous to the United States, who took up arms against their own country, and inflicted catastrophic death and suffering among US citizens, should not be afforded such a rare honor in this sacred space,” Booker said. “These statues belong in a museum, where they are put in the proper historical context.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus have also called for the monuments to be removed from the Capitol.

Across the United States, roughly 1,500 Confederate symbols still exist on public land more than 150 years after the conclusion of the Civil War, according to 2016 data from the Southern Poverty Law Center. Roughly half of those symbols are monuments and statues. Three in four of them were built before 1950, but at least one in 10 of them were dedicated during the civil rights movement or since the year 2000.

Four Confederate-era monuments were removed last week in Baltimore, Maryland, and the governors of Virginia and North Carolina requested the removal of Confederate monuments in their states.