Prof. Micki McElya provides meaningful commentary and historical context on the removal of and plans for the Arlington Memorial’s Confederate statue in the Washington Post article, “Youngkin directs VMI to accept controversial Confederate statue.” The piece, written by Joe Hein and Ian Shapiro, discusses Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s request for the Virginia Military Institute to accept responsibility for the placement at the Virginia Museum of the Civil War at New Market Battlefield State Historical Park.
McElya’s book, The Politics of Mourning: Death and Honor in Arlington National Ceremony (a Pulitzer Prize finalist) highlights the role of Arlington Cemetery as the most influential site of politicized national identity formation in the United States. Her scholarly work provides important context for understanding the removal and the continued education necessary to clarify, as McElya noted, “the toxic misrepresentations of slavery, the Confederacy, and the Civil War the monument represents.”
