House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Thursday announced that she has ordered the removal of portraits of four House speakers who served in the Confederacy that are on display at the Capitol, according to NBC News.
“There is no room in the hallowed halls of Congress or in any place of honor for memorializing men who embody the violent bigotry and grotesque racism of the Confederacy,” she wrote in a letter to Cheryl Johnson, clerk of the House of Representatives, released Thursday.
In the letter, Pelosi requested the immediate removal of the portraits of Robert Hunter of Virginia who served as House speaker from 1839 to 1841; Howell Cobbs of Georgia (1849 to 1851); James Orr of South Carolina (1857 to 1859); and Charles Crisp of Georgia (1891 to 1895).
"We cannot honor men such as James Orr, who swore on the House Floor to 'preserve and perpetuate' slavery in order to 'enjoy our property in peace, quiet and security,' or Robert Hunter, who served at nearly every level of the Confederacy, including in the Confederate Provincial Congress, as Confederate Secretary of State, in the Confederate Senate and in the Confederate Army,” Pelosi wrote in the letter. "The portraits of these men are symbols that set back our nation's work to confront and combat bigotry."
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