In response to the Charlottesville tragedy, and in particular the death of Heather Heyer, the descendants of Sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel wish to have his 32 foot work removed from the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery:
WaPo
“The group wrote the letter in light of the death of Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old Charlottesville woman. She was killed Saturday while taking part in a counter-demonstration, opposing white nationalists who had come to the city to rally in support of a statue of Lee in a public park. Twenty-two people in the Ezekiel family — ages 20 to 90 — from across the country signed the letter calling for the Confederate Memorial’s removal from Arlington.
“We were all horrified at the Nazi and white supremacist demonstration in Charlottesville,” said Judith Ezekiel, a visiting professor of women’s studies and African American studies at Wright State University in Ohio.
“All of us agree that monuments to the Confederacy are racist justifications of slavery, of owning people,” she said Friday in a telephone interview. “We wanted to say that although Ezekiel is a relative of ours, we still believe it’s a relic of a racist past.”
Perhaps most offensive tableau in the work is the depiction of the “loyal slave” described by the executive committee of the Arlington Confederate Monument Association as "an officer, kissing his child in the arms of an old negro 'mammy.'" Elsewhere the work memorializes a negro solider marching to war with his slavers.
Ezekiel, one of the most renowned sculptors of his day, was, interestingly, both Jewish and a Confederate Soldier. He had a studio in Italy and two of his sculptures, of Homer and Thomas Jefferson, adorn the University of Virginia Campus, near where Neo-Nazis held their torch lit procession and clashed with counter-protesters.
His family wants the association to end there…
Their letter to The Washington Post:
“One of the most important memorials to the Confederacy is the statue at Arlington National Cemetery, unveiled in 1914. It was sculpted by Moses Jacob Ezekiel, a former Confederate soldier and a prominent sculptor of his time. Ezekiel was our relative.
“Like most such monuments, this statue intended to rewrite history to justify the Confederacy and the subsequent racist Jim Crow laws. It glorifies the fight to own human beings, and, in its portrayal of African Americans, implies their collusion. As proud as our family may be of Moses’s artistic prowess, we — some twenty Ezekiels — say remove that statue. Take it out of its honored spot in Arlington National Cemetery and put it in a museum that makes clear its oppressive history.”