Comment by mnm1

People don't want to acknowledge such events because they are not simply artifacts of the past. Racism and racist violence is going on right now. Slavery is happening to millions of people in our prisons right now. People don't want to be reminded of our ugly, despicable history and they especially don't want to be reminded of our ugly, despicable present. That would make it harder to continue doing these ugly, despicable things. The people doing these things and supporting these things do not want to stop. Ever. This is the heritage that the South (and the country in general) wants to preserve when they preserve Confederate monuments, a heritage of hate and violence that continues to this day. More importantly they want to preserve the ability to continue these atrocities in the present and future. Unlike Germany after the nazis, Confederate Americans after the civil war did not see their actions, and later the actions of their ancestors, as the despicable, horrific events they were. They were just sad they lost the war. That's still the case with enough of the South now that we have these monuments. If they could bring back slavery, (outside of prisons where it has been preserved) now, I have no doubt that would. By vote or by force.