Since Floyd’s death, nearly 170 statues, street names and other tributes to the Confederacy have been removed or renamed in the US, SPLC data shows. “There has been a continuous reckoning around public history and race,” said Kelley, Gary B Nash endowed chair in UShistory at the University of California, Los Angeles. Historian Nell Irvin Painter, who addresses Confederate iconography in an ink, graphite and collage series called From Slavery to Freedom, said many people weren’t ready to reckon with the symbols until Floyd’s death. “Schools changed their names and roads’ names changed. The response to Floyd’s death “already had an international dimension”, historian Kelley said.

Source: The Guardian May 22, 2021 09:56 UTC