Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent the following letter today to Cheryl Johnson, Clerk of the House of Representatives, requesting the removal of portraits of the previous House Speakers who served in the Confederacy from display in the U.S. Capitol. In 2017, Pelosi called on then-Speaker Paul Ryan to join her in supporting legislation to remove the Confederate statutes in the National Statuary Hall Collection, which she furthered in a request for their removal in a letter to the Joint Committee on the Library earlier this month.
In the letter, the Speaker wrote “Tomorrow, Americans will mark Juneteenth, a beautiful and proud celebration of freedom for African Americans. Very sadly, this day comes during a moment of extraordinary national anguish, as we grieve for the hundreds of Black Americans killed by racial injustice and police brutality, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and so many others.”
“To appropriately observe Juneteenth this year, I write today to request the immediate removal of the portraits in the U.S. Capitol of four previous Speakers who served in the Confederacy: Robert Hunter of Virginia (1839-1841), Howell Cobb of Georgia (1849-1851), James Orr of South Carolina (1857-1859), and Charles Crisp of Georgia (1891-1895).”
