While local civil rights and African-American leaders are calling for the removal of Confederate monuments in Arizona, the state’s historian says not so fast.
This week, NAACP officials joined with state Rep. Reginald Bolding in asking for six such monuments around Arizona to be extricated.
But state historian Marshall Trimble believes it would be a mistake to ignore history, as harsh as it may be.
"This is not Russia and it’s not Nazi Germany, this is America. We always show warts and all. And if we don’t show this — if we hide it, it gets eradicated and it’s like we’re changing our history,” Trimble said.
Trimble feels the monuments should be used as teaching tools and that it’s unfair for current day society to judge men who fought for the defense of the Confederacy over 150 years ago.
One of the monuments is at the state Capitol while another along U.S. 60, is a memorial to former confederate President Jefferson Davis.
