Protesters in Wisconsin were so intent this week on toppling a statue to a white man, they didn't even bother to read the inscription on the monument or Google who it was they were defacing.
If they had, they'd have realized they were actually targeting a statue to one of the nation's most ardent anti-racism activists. But then, that would've required having a basic understanding of American history and, well, actually caring about it.
Vandals targeted the statue of Colonel Hans Christian Heg, a Union army leader and anti-slavery crusader who died while battling the Confederacy during the Civil War - a legacy apparently didn't matter to the rioters who destroyed his bronze likeness and tossed it in a lake.
Colonel Hans Christian Heg campaigned against slavery, fought in the Union army during the American Civil War, and even led a militia that targeted slave-catchers in Wisconsin.
He was shot leading his regiment against Confederate troops at the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863, and died the next day.
But being about as anti-racism as you can possibly get wasn’t enough to keep a monument to Heg from being toppled by “anti-racism” thugs who’re so ignorant of history that they don’t even know who or what they’re protesting against. Reports say Heg’s statue that stood outside the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison was torn down, decapitated, and its pedestal defaced this week by rioters. The vandals then tossed the headless statue into nearby Lake Monona.
The Hans Christian Heg statue is lying headless in lake Monona. #wkow pic.twitter.com/0grawivgtf
— Michelle Alfini (@MichelleAlf) June 24, 2020
Why? They don’t know.
Unfortunately, Heg’s statue isn’t the only monument to an anti-slavery icon that’s been targeted by ignorant protesters. Earlier this month, a monument to abolitionist Matthias Baldwin was defaced with spray paint outside Philadelphia City Hall. Baldwin was one of the first to argue for black voting rights nearly three full decades before the start of the Civil War, and even began an all-black school that he funded out of his own pocket.