Statues are for heroes. When you erect statues of villains you glorify their accomplishments as heoic. The primary accomplishment of the confederacy and its leaders who are now enshrined in statuary around the South was to secede and start a civil war with America for the purpose of retaining slavery against an entire race. By glorifying that, those who erected and those who support them today are tacitly stating that if we had our way we would again endeavour to return to those days of total white race dominance. Of course we can't, so we have these statues in our public places to tell the world what we still believe in. These bigoted white supremacists who took up arms in the name of slavery are our heroes. Surely the southern states have other truly noble humanitarian heroes who's stories would be better told in the public parks throughout the south than these abhorrent symbols of apartheid and racial cruelty.