“The survey shows that in many ways we are still having this long discussion about who we are as a country and what values should guide memorials in public spaces,” said Jones of PRRI during the panel discussion. On the question of whether respondents feel pride about Confederate monuments, 38% of Republicans agree, compared to 16% of independents and 14% of Democrats. The survey also showed that white Christians are less aware of their community’s Confederate symbols than Black Christians. Black respondents in general view Confederate symbols as a sign of racism by a 2-to-1 margin over white respondents. (A little over a third of the country’s Democrats are white Christians.)īlack Protestants identified racial equity as the core value that should guide the creation of monuments in public spaces. The Republicans’ responses showed a high correlation between racism and their views on monument reform. The survey found that Republicans prioritize patriotism as their core value when thinking about monuments in public spaces and scored twice as high as Democrats on a “structural racism index” developed by Robert P. Nearly seven in 10 Republicans self-identify as white Christians, according to PRRI’s 2020 Census of American Religion. More than any other factor, the survey found that political partisanship influences Americans’ views on race and Confederate symbols even more than regionalism – a linkage consistent with the steep rise in political polarization between Republicans and Democrats. And there are massive religious divides between white evangelical Protestant Christians, who are most prominent in the South, on the one hand, and the religiously unaffiliated and Black Protestants on the other. Republicans stood apart from independents and Democrats. Ninety percent believe that the history of slavery should be told, and nearly half of Americans, regardless of political party or religious affiliation, agree that the values that should guide the creation of new monuments in public spaces are service to the community, our foundation as a nation of immigrants and patriotism.īeyond that, however, the survey found vast partisan and religious chasms. Ninety-six percent of the respondents believe that public spaces should be more welcoming to people of diverse backgrounds and ethnicities. The survey results show that about 75% of all Americans agree that Confederate monuments should not remain as they are but should either be contextualized in place with historical information, moved to a museum or destroyed. EPU was founded in 2018 by former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who in 2017 removed four prominent Confederate monuments from the city’s public spaces after a yearslong, controversial effort. The survey of nearly 5,500 American adults – just over 400 of whom live in 13 Southern states – was designed by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) as part of a partnership with E Pluribus Unum (EPU), a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization whose mission is to build a more equitable and inclusive South. Brooks, representing the SPLC, was among the panelists. Charles Center for Faith and Action in New Orleans. The results were unveiled in September during a panel discussion, “ The Role of Religion in Creating More Inclusive Public Spaces,” at the historic St. Yet, the results from a new survey of Americans’ views on Confederate iconography paint a more nuanced, complex and somewhat hopeful picture. Now when Brooks drives to work in Montgomery, Alabama, from her rural home just outside the first capital of the Confederacy, she remains daunted by the common sight of Confederate flags and “Let’s go, Brandon” and Trump signs scattered along roads and in people’s yards. “I thought, ‘Oh, my God, what are you trying to tell me? What is the message when I would see these images everywhere?’ And the message I received, as a Black person, was, ‘OK, we are still here, and we are watching.’ ” When Lecia Brooks, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s chief of staff and culture, first moved from Los Angeles to Alabama in 2004 and was suddenly confronted with pervasive symbols of the Confederacy, she understood that white people were sending her a stark message.
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