These Unnameable Objects

From coast to coast people have torn down and vandalized monuments built to the Confederacy, police, colonizers, and other white supremacists. But this is only the latest chorus in a struggle dating back centuries.

Contained here are two essays: "Each Crueler Than the Last," a history of Christopher Columbus, Henry Shaw, and people who defied them from below, and "The State Didn't Remove the Statues--We Did," a chronology of the dozens of statues toppled and monuments defaced during the summer of 2020.

If America is ever to be a place of freedom, where wealth and power are equally shared, we must first confront the past that many still choose to deny.