By Kody Kiser
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Aug. 10, 2020) — The discussions over removal of Confederate memorials in the United States have been some of the more prominent ones in our current cultural landscape. Gaining momentum from other recent social movements that are happening concurrently, from Black Lives Matter to #MeToo and beyond, the focus of these discussions now seems to have widened to include memorials and statues that go well further back than the American Civil War, and beyond the borders of this country.
Amy Murrell Taylor, the T. Marshall Hahn Jr. Professor of History at the University of Kentucky, last appeared on "Behind the Blue" in September of 2017. On this newest episode, Taylor returns to discuss how this movement has progressed over the past three years, and how the university and Lexington are approaching these conversations. “I think Lexington has gotten past the most contentious part of the monument piece of all of this,” says Taylor. “But monuments are just one piece of a much bigger struggle for racial justice.”
Taylor also talks about her recent book, “Embattled Freedom: Journeys Through the Civil War’s Slave Refugee Camps,” and its themes of freedom not just coming to people despite the war and its resolution, but that it had to be sought after in the midst of it.
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