Robert E. Lee’s Descendant On Confederate Statues

NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro interviews the Rev. Robert Wright Lee, “a nephew many generations removed of Robert E. Lee.” Of Confederate statues, the younger Lee says, “I do think they need to come down. I think it’s time that we have a conversation about how to remember our past without commemorating our past.” He also preached a sermon on Sunday about speaking up in the face of racism. He said, “The parishioners responded with great grace and hope for the future. And they recognized that what we have been done – what we have done as a white, downtown church where I preached this sermon, in Statesville, was problematic because we have not spoken to our black neighbors. We have not spoken out for people of color, and we have to start doing that if we want to make a difference in this world and if we want to be relevant as a church in the 21st century.”

Read at NPR

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