Matt Bevin calls removal of Confederate monuments 'sanitization of history'

Courier Journal

A statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in the Capitol rotunda in Frankfort, Ky.

Gov. Matt Bevin said he "absolutely" disagrees with the removal of Confederate symbols and monuments from government property on Tuesday, calling the efforts to do so a "sanitization of history."

But later he walked back that statement, repeatedly saying that "hatred and bigotry has no place in Kentucky."

In the radio interview, Bevin also echoed President Donald Trump when he said that white supremacists and opposing protesters were equally to blame for the violence at a weekend white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The rally led to three deaths, including a woman who was killed when a car crashed into counterprotesters and two state troopers who died when their helicopter crashed.

In the days since, there have been a series of protests demanding that Confederate monuments be taken down. A rally planned Wednesday in Frankfort, Kentucky, will call for the removal of Confederate President Jefferson Davis's statue from the state's Capitol.

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But Bevin — who was making his first public comments to the media about the issue — said on the radio show that removing Confederate symbols would be "dangerous" because it would encourage people to "pretend it didn't happen."

"If we want to learn from history, if we don't want to repeat the mistakes of our past, then we better teach it to our young people," he said on the radio show. "It better be known, it doesn't have to be celebrated as in, 'This was something we did and should do again.' "

Those comments come after he said two years ago, as a gubernatorial candidate, that "parts of our history are more appropriately displayed in museums, not on government property."

When asked by reporters Tuesday afternoon at a ceremony in the Capitol if his views had changed, Bevin said: "What I’m saying today is what I believe, and that is, that it is a dangerous precedent" to remove Confederate statues.

The governor also denied that he said removing Confederate symbols or statues was a "sanitization of history." Rather, he said, such efforts are "revisionist," In an online recording of the radio interview with WVHU, Bevin can be heard saying, "No, I absolutely disagree with this sanitization of history."

Jordan Harris, who is organizing the "One People, One Commonwealth" rally against the Davis statue, said the governor and other elected leaders need to be reminded of what they've said about the monument.

"Putting those statues in a place of reverence sends the wrong message of who we are as a people," said Harris, executive director of the Louisville-based Pegasus Institute.

Bevin said he would discourage protests like the one in Charlottesville from coming to Kentucky and that state officials would make it clear that any violence would be unacceptable.

The governor said law enforcement in Charlottesville failed to keep the white supremacists and counterprotesters separate.

"The fact that people were allowed to clash with one another as they were in Virginia, that people were encouraged to come in and counterprotest, and be just as violent and angry as the hateful people that came in the first place, people knew what was going to happen," Bevin said.

The marble statue of Davis, who was born in Fairview, Kentucky, has stood in the Capitol since 1936. There were calls to remove it two years ago following the murder of nine people at a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina, by a white supremacist.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley had the Confederate flag removed from that state's capitol in the aftermath. Bevin, a candidate at the time, supported that move. "I applaud Gov. Haley's decision to call for the removal of the Confederate flag from capitol grounds in South Carolina, and I think it would be equally appropriate for Kentucky to remove that Jefferson Davis statue from our Capitol," he said.

Kentucky, which was a slave state, never joined the Confederacy during the Civil War. But according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Kentucky has 41 Confederate memorials, more than any state outside the seceding states.

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In response to the Charlottesville violence, other leaders in Kentucky are either considering or pledging to remove Confederate monuments.

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer has asked the city's public art commission to review its inventory and develop a list of public works that are potentially tied to racism and slavery. Protesters have called for the removal of a statue honoring John B. Castleman, who was a Confederate officer and later president of the city's Board of Parks Commissioners.

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Lexington Mayor Jim Gray says he is moving to relocate two Confederate statues — honoring John Hunt Morgan and John C. Breckinridge.

"We have to reject this romanticized Confederacy that's been presented," Harris said. "I grew up in Breckinridge County, and was told the war was over state's rights, and I think those things are destructive. If we confront the reality of slavery, Jim Crow and the lynchings that took place in our state, it does more to heal us."

Reporter Phillip M. Bailey can be reached at 502-582-4475 or pbailey@courier-journal.com.