House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who on Wednesday demanded the removal of Confederate statues occupying the U.S. Capitol, has remained silent on her father’s role in overseeing the dedication of the Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee Monument while serving as Baltimore’s mayor in 1948.
Pelosi this week formally requested the removal of Confederate statues occupying the U.S. Capitol, dismissing them as “monuments to men who advocated cruelty and barbarism to achieve such a plainly racist end.” Her demand comes as angry protesters across the nation take matters into their own hands, vandalizing — and in some cases, beheading — statues and monuments memorializing the Civil War era and beyond.
“As I have said before, the halls of Congress are the very heart of our democracy. The statues in the Capitol should embody our highest ideals as Americans, expressing who we are and who we aspire to be as a nation,” Pelosi said in her letter to Committee Chair Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Vice Chair Zoe Lofgren (D-CA).
“Monuments to men who advocated cruelty and barbarism to achieve such a plainly racist end are a grotesque affront to these ideals,” she continued. “Their statues pay homage to hate, not heritage. They must be removed.”
However, her father, Thomas D’Alesandro, Jr., oversaw the dedication of such a statue in Baltimore’s Wyman Park — the Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee Monument — as mayor of the city in 1948. At the time, the Speaker’s father said people could look to Jackson’s and Lee’s lives as inspiration and urged Americans to “emulate Jackson’s example and stand like a stone wall against aggression in any form that would seek to destroy the liberty of the world.”
“World Wars I and II found the North and South fighting for a common cause, and the generalship and military science displayed by these two great men in the War between the States lived on and were applied in the military plans of our nation in Europe and the Pacific areas,” D’Alesandro said at the dedication ceremony, as detailed by the Baltimore Sun. He continued:
Today with our nation beset by subversive groups and propaganda which seeks to destroy our national unity, we can look for inspiration to the lives of Lee and Jackson to remind us to be resolute and determined in preserving our sacred institutions … remain steadfast in our determination to preserve freedom, not only for ourselves, but for other liberty-loving nations who are striving to preserve their national unity as free nations.
“In these days of uncertainty and turmoil, Americans must emulate Jackson’s example and stand like a stone wall against aggression in any form that would seek to destroy the liberty of the world,” he added.
City crews removed the statue in August 2017 under the direction of the city council:
Pelosi’s office did not respond to Breitbart News’s request for comment on the matter.
This is not the only inquiry Pelosi refused to answer regarding her family’s history. The Speaker has also, in recent weeks, criticized President Trump’s response to violent riots.
In a June 4 letter to the president, she wrote:
We are concerned about the increased militarization and lack of clarity that may increase chaos. I am writing to request a full list of the agencies involved and clarifications of the roles and responsibilities of the troops and federal law enforcement resources operating in the city. Congress and the American people need to know who is in charge, what is the chain of command, what is the mission, and by what authority is the National Guard from other states operating in the capital.
However, Pelosi’s brother, while serving as Baltimore’s mayor in the 1960s, specifically requested then-Gov. Spiro Agnew call in the National Guard to quell the unrest during the riots of 1968.
As Baltimore Magazine detailed:
At 10 p.m., city police admitted their inability to contain the chaos, and Governor Spiro Agnew, at the request of Baltimore Mayor Thomas D’Alesandro III, called in the National Guard, simultaneously issuing an 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew for the city.
By late evening on Saturday, April 6, 1968, the Baltimore riots were in full swing. When the sun rose the next day, 5,500 National Guardsmen, 400 state troopers, and 1,200 city cops occupied Baltimore. Three people were dead; 70 injured; more than 100 arrested; and 250 fire alarms had been reported. On the East Side, still-smoldering buildings lined streets and sidewalks that were flecked with shards of broken glass.
Sparked by the April 4 assassination of civil-rights patriarch Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, and fueled by decades of repressed anger and resentment over perceived political, social, and economic injustices, African-American communities erupted in violence in Baltimore and many other U.S. cities—New York, Boston, Detroit, Cincinnati, and Tallahassee—with Chicago and Washington, D.C., suffering the most extensive damage.
The Speaker’s office did not return Breitbart News’s request for comment on her brother’s use of the National Guard, either.
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