logo
Alison Cuddy and Lisa Yun Lee: Stonewall and other monuments must not be used as a weapon

Alison Cuddy and Lisa Yun Lee: Stonewall and other monuments must not be used as a weapon

Chicago Tribune11-03-2025
When the National Park Service recently removed all references to transgender and queer people from the Stonewall National Monument website, one of our country's most important ways to honor and preserve the past was effectively turned into a weapon, one designed to further the Trump administration's attack on so-called 'gender ideology' as well as on public history.
Monuments have been challenged and even removed in recent years, some with acts of civil disobedience, including violence. As a nation, we've debated the way they can shape, distort or deny our collective understanding of the past or help us find common ground over time and across our differences. We've begun to reckon with the reality that one person's hero is another's worst enemy, or that a moment of national pride can also be one of deep shame.
That conversation has been particularly rich in Chicago. In 2020, the city convened a committee to both review and make recommendations about the city's existing monuments and markers. As two people deeply involved in the city's efforts to realize new monuments and markers, we believe several lessons from that process offer a path forward now, one we urgently need to follow.
First, we need more, not fewer, monuments. In Chicago that work is underway. Memorials to Mahalia Jackson, Mother Jones, and Latina histories in Pilsen, commemorations of the Chicago Race Riots of 1919 and honoring the survivors of police torture, and a series that foregrounds Native American stories, are all in the works. By turns they offer opportunities to celebrate the past, acknowledge its erasures and confront the hard truths of racial history. Rather than removing troubling monuments, the city plans to engage with some of them, including adding to an existing statue of George Washington in Washington Park.
Second, we also need to talk with one another more, not less, about monuments. Revisiting the city's memorials encouraged a wide-ranging civic dialogue about how best to recognize our histories. Community organizations, youth groups, historical societies and artists all made suggestions for new markers or shared ideas about how to tell these stories. All of it was an engagement with public history as not just an opportunity to celebrate but also to confront and even heal our shared past. We need platforms, spaces and opportunities for us to share and understand why monuments and memorials matter to us and to be able to challenge and confront one another in civil ways.
The national conversation around monuments has also led President Donald Trump to call for more memorials, through an idea he proposed during his first term in office and has recently revived. The ' National Garden of American Heroes ' would have over 250 statues recognizing significant Americans, from Whitney Houston to Harriet Tubman and Antonin Scalia. While there is nothing wrong with adding more monuments, what is missing in his plan is any kind of invitation to the public to discuss the merits, contributions and impact of these historical figures.
On the contrary, his policy around monuments and memorials seeks to stifle debate, threatening to punish people 'to the fullest extent permitted under Federal law' for any actions that result in the damage or desecration of monuments. How ironic, then, that by erasing the role of trans and queer people in the historic events the Stonewall memorial honors and removing the T and Q from LGBTQ, the administration is in effect violating its own policy, desecrating the history this monument seeks to remember.
With this move, Trump offers up history as a zero-sum game, where one person or community's win is seen as a threat or loss to another group's identity. Monuments and memorials can and should do more than simply be a definitive representation of one person's truth over another. But contests around the limits of public history, historical truth and national identity emerge through collective democratic processes, not via an executive order or individual fiat.
Monuments matter not only because they speak to our past but because they allow us to discuss the most pressing issues facing us today. There are many examples of what this looks like in Chicago. The recently announced plan to create the COVID-19 Memorial Monument of Honor, Remembrance & Resilience, a 25-foot stainless-steel sculpture on a site in the Illinois Medical District, offers a place where we could come together to remember what we went through and to discuss public health policy, how to prepare for the next pandemic and care for the most vulnerable people in our society.
This vision of monuments as active and evolving community spaces is at the heart of a city-led project, announced in 2023, to create markers across Chicago neighborhoods, ones that would honor the way all communities have contributed to the city's history, from the work of everyday individuals to historic sites and collective events like festivals.
Monuments can help us to reactivate a vibrant public sphere that nurtures discussion and debate, one free from loyalty oaths, the threat of censorship, and retribution. Chicago offers a case study in how to make that happen, but it will take all of us to participate in expanding our shared history. Monuments are not just static timeless statues but a critical tool of resistance, especially as the current administration seeks to erase not just history but the lived realities and experiences of Americans.
Alison Cuddy is a writer and consultant for the city of Chicago Community Markers program. Lisa Yun Lee is the executive director of the National Public Housing Museum and a member of the Chicago Monuments Project and the Chicago Torture Justice Memorials.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Six months in, Trump's numbers are stronger than in his first term
Six months in, Trump's numbers are stronger than in his first term

The Hill

time5 minutes ago

  • The Hill

Six months in, Trump's numbers are stronger than in his first term

Six months into his second term, President Trump and Republicans are in better shape than eight years ago. Unquestionably, President Trump remains a divisive political figure. However, he has expanded his base and continues to hold it. In contrast, Democrats have been unable to capitalize on Trump's political vulnerabilities and have lost ground compared to 2017. With the House's passage of his rescission package, Trump scored another major win. He has had many, both at home and abroad: a successful strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, enactment of the ' big, beautiful ' budget reconciliation bill, a multitude of favorable Supreme Court decisions, DOGE's cuts, closing the border and deportations. Trump is doing what he promised. His base should be pleased. It is a striking contrast from 2017 when he had a much more mixed record: enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act but an Obamacare fiasco. However, while today's accomplishments play well to his base, how is Trump doing overall? The answer is important because Republicans took a beating in 2018's midterm elections, Democrats gaining 41 seats in the House and the majority. Trump's ability to pass legislation was derailed, his administration was continually dogged by House investigations and he was impeached twice. Trump remains divisive. That hasn't changed and clearly never will. Six months after his inauguration, according to the July 20 RealClearPolitics average of national polls, Trump's net job approval rating was minus-6.6 percentage points. His average approval rating of 45.5 percent is 4.4 percentage points below his share of the 2024 popular vote. However, Trump is well ahead of where he was at roughly the same point in his first term. On July 19, 2017, Trump was at minus-16 percentage points in his job approval: 39.7-55.7 percent. Further, Trump's current job approval-disapproval rating is 50 to 48 percent in Real Clear Politics' only poll (Rasmussen) of likely voters — which is tied with his share of 2024's popular vote. Trump's comparatively favorable showing is carrying over to congressional Republicans. In the July 22 RealClearPolitics average of national generic congressional vote polling, Democrats lead by 3 percentage points. To put this into historical context, we can look back at the earliest generic vote polls in July of the even years before each of the last six congressional elections, Democrats led in all six, yet the subsequent elections were a different story. Democrats lost either House or Senate seats in five of those elections. Looking more closely at today, the Democrats' average lead in likely voter generic polls (Rasmussen and Cygnal) — again the ones who matter most — Democrats' average lead is just 2.5 percentage points. A lot has changed in eight years. back in 2017, Trump's 2016 presidential victory was still being dismissed by some — including some Republicans — as a fluke, a factor of Hillary Clinton's weakness more than his strength. Not so much this time. Trump's 2024 victory was decisive and even quite impressive, considering the obstacles he faced — including but not limited to Democrats' lawfare, two assassination attempts and a concertedly negative establishment media. In office, Trump looked less in control, especially early on. Congressional Republicans reflected this and appeared to be in disarray, as exemplified by their failed efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare. The results reflected this — particularly their loss of 42 House seats in 2018. Of course, there are caveats about projecting too much from such an early look ahead to 2026. Today's generic numbers come from a much more greater number of polls than had been taken in some of those six previous elections. Republicans' numbers could yet slide. But they could also improve. Trump's approval ratings could slide too. But the same upside potential applies here as well. Invariably, there will be more polling of likely voters as the 2026 election nears — again, the ones that count (or rather, vote) — among whom Trump has historically outperformed among them. Many new issues will arise in the year and a half before 2026's midterms. Yet none may be larger than the negative one on Democrats' horizon: Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani's nomination as their candidate for mayor of New York City. Should Mamdani win, he will draw attention away from Trump and onto a set of controversial policies and positions that many Americans view as extreme. He will also exacerbate fissures among Democrats. Although Trump is divisive, he is not dividing his base. And Trump's base is far bigger than it was eight years ago. Democrats are not capitalizing on Trump's divisiveness. They remain leaderless and look more divided than Republicans. J.T. Young is the author of the recent book, 'Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America's Socialist Left' from RealClear Publishing and has over three decades' experience working in Congress, the Department of Treasury, the Office of Management, and Budget, and representing a Fortune 20 company.

Why Americans love conspiracy theories
Why Americans love conspiracy theories

Washington Post

time6 minutes ago

  • Washington Post

Why Americans love conspiracy theories

It's been weeks since the Jeffrey Epstein saga returned to dominate our political discourse. This is unusual. Trump scandals typically have short half-lives, burning bright before fading into the background noise of American politics. Yet here we are, still parsing documents and connections with the kind of dedicated attention usually reserved for major legislative battles that actually impact people's lives. There's something about conspiracy theories — and the Epstein story is nothing if not conspiratorial — that captures our imagination in ways that policy debates rarely can.

What some of Trump's Scotland golf course neighbors have to say ahead of his visit
What some of Trump's Scotland golf course neighbors have to say ahead of his visit

CBS News

time6 minutes ago

  • CBS News

What some of Trump's Scotland golf course neighbors have to say ahead of his visit

Balmedie, Scotland — President Trump is due to arrive in Scotland Friday for a four-day private trip — his first to the U.K since he was re-elected. The White House says he'll meet near the end of his visit with Prime Minister Keir Starmer to discuss trade, but he'll also be opening a brand-new course at the Trump International Golf Links. Set on Scotland's rugged northeast coast, it's a stunningly beautiful location, and it's easy to see why President Trump was keen to purchase the site more than a decade ago and develop it into a world-class golf club. But as CBS News learned from speaking with locals, many struggle to separate the American President's politics from his putting green. David Milne bought his old Coast Guard look-out on the Aberdeenshire coast over 20 years ago, and he still lives there today. But since 2012, it's been right in the middle of Trump territory, surrounded by hundreds of acres of shifting sand dunes that have been meticulously sculpted into 36 holes that anyone can play a round on — for about $500. Milne isn't happy about his new neighbor. "It's always second-best to what was there originally," he told CBS News. "When I came in here, this landscape was untouched… now it's just a golf course ." Mr. Trump first purchased the land in 2006, and during development he offered to buy some of the neighbors' places, too, but Milne refused to sell. In 2011, Mr. Trump said he didn't like the look of Milne's property anyway. "Who cares," the future president told the Golf Channel, pointing to Milne's home. "We're trying to build the greatest course in the world. The house is ugly." Asked what the land means to himself and his family, Milne said it was much more than just a patch of picturesque coastline. "Land is what Scotland is. Not just financially, it's in the soul of the Scottish people as well. It is where we come from, and where we go back to," he said. The visit to Scotland is a homecoming for Mr. Trump, too. His mother, born Mary Anne MacLeod in 1912, grew up on a the Scottish Hebridean island of Lewis. He named one of his courses in Aberdeenshire after her. Mr. Trump has been met with protests on previous visits, and vandalism at his golf courses has taken a political tone in recent months. Tommy Campbell, a veteran labor union activist in Scotland, told CBS News he was planning to lead another protest during the U.S. leader's visit this weekend, with a clear message for Mr. Trump: "You are not welcome here," he said. "The policies that he represents are completely at odds with what we value here." A poll conducted in February found around 70% of Scots have an unfavorable opinion of President Trump. In the village near his golf links, CBS News spoke with the members of a walking club, who hold a grudge. "The way he treated the neighbors and property owners, I think that influenced us all badly," said one woman. But the course employs more than 80 people, and the White House says it has had a positive economic impact in the area. One local man – a golfer – told CBS News the business Mr. Trump has done, "from a golf perspective, is fantastic." "Not saying the protests are not right," he added. "Some of the stuff, I'd agree with the protesters, but I think there's a time and a place for it, and it's not on the golf course." Opinions about President Trump are a bit like the weather in Aberdeenshire. But fair or foul — in true Scottish fashion — they're unlikely to stop a good round of golf.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store