@NickSacco55 has been doing remarkable work for several years on the public memory of Grant and some of the persistent myths that have clung to Grant’s reputation since the Lost Cause. https://twitter.com/nicksacco55/status/1274351957986205698

By no means was Grant perfect. As President, his Native American policies were abhorrent (as were those of virtually every 19th century president). And while he had a relationship to slavery though marriage, as @NickSacco55 has shown, branding him an enslaver seems problematic.

But the last generation of scholarship on Grant, starting in the early 1980s and culminating with a slew of biographies in the last 5 years synthesizing that scholarship has revolutionized our understanding of his legacy, especially as President.

So much of Grant’s public image and reputation is still connected to the smear campaign of the Lost Cause. But our understanding of his efforts to protect black rights during Reconstruction and crush white racial terorrism in the South has changed.

Again, he was not perfect, and his efforts to protect black rights were flawed. But they were real.This transformstive movement we are witnessing is about black voices and black lives. We don’t need more white heroes.

But nuance and context are also important. Grant was as important as any public figure in the 19th cent. to ensuring the destruciton of slavery and attempting to secure black rights, even if that attempt fell short. Does that outweigh his flaws? Is that conversation worthwhile?

Ultimately it should be possible to have that nuanced conversation about a historical figure like Grant while still maintaining our focus on centering black voices in striving for transformative change in this moment. /end