Wians to speak on Confederate Statues on Sunday 1/13...

The following provided by William Wians.

“Granite Statues, Feet of Clay”Confederate Statues in Public Places

Medfield First Parish member Bill Wians will speak this Sunday, January 13, at First Parish Unitarian-Universalist, Medfield, about the continuing controversy over maintaining Confederate statues in public places.

His talk is entitled and will be part of the regular Sunday worship service. Men like Generals Robert E. Lee and Nathan Bedford Forrest and President of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis fought on the losing side of a war to preserve slavery. But they and thousands of others served out of a sense of honor and duty. Hundreds of statues and other monuments now commemorate their
service.

Wians asks, "What is the right thing to do about them?"

Answering the question is complicated.

Confederate generals aren’t the only flawed men commemorated in statues and in other ways. What about slave-owners like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson? What about other flawed figures like Christopher Columbus? What about Martin Luther King Jr., whose holiday comes later this month? Wians, a professor of philosophy at Merrimack College and Boston College, will look at the “What about” question and why and when it must be asked.

Statues of Confederate Civil War figures became especially controversial after the murders of nine black parishioners by a white supremacist at a church in Charleston, SC in 2015 and the violence by white nationalists at a 2017 rally in Charlottesville, VA. The rally was called to protest the removal from a public park of a statue of Robert E. Lee.

First Parish Unitarian-Universalist is located at 26 North St., Medfield. The congregation serves residents of Medfield, Walpole, Norfolk, Millis, and surrounding towns. Services begin at 10am. The church is a Welcoming Congregation. Phone: 508-359-4594.

Web: www.firstparishmedfield.org.; also www.uua.org. Child care will be provided.

For further information:Rev. David Chandler, 508-359-4594 minister@firstparishmedfield.org
William Wians, 508-479-2612, wwians@mac.com