The Hawaiian monuments landscape offers important differences to the rest of the monuments landscape known throughout the continental United States. One of their contentious monuments is the Captain James Cook Monument, an obelisk that exists at the site where Cook was killed. In this episode, we talk with Shane Akoni Palacat-Nelsen, the President and Executive Director of Hoʻāla Kealakekua Nui, who shares with us the history behind this monument and what makes monuments in Hawaii unique.

Credits

Song Credits:

Melancholy Lull by Vital

Royalty Free Music: Bensound.com/royalty-free-music

License code: GHSG4LYAWYBKBEES

Today, we’re joined by Rivka Maizlish, Senior Research Analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center to talk about the center’s most recent edition of the Whose Heritage? report. The Whose Heritage? report documents the progress in Confederate memorial removal over the last two years and provides an interactive map documenting where these monuments exist and their current status. This is the third edition of this report that SPLC has been creating since 2015 and includes information on Confederate memorials of all kinds, including monuments, schools and buildings named for Confederates, sites of Confederate history, and more. In our conversation, we discuss some of the highlights from this report and how individuals can get involved in the greater fight to remove oppressive monuments and memorials.

Read the Whose Heritage? report here.

Learn more from the Community Action Guide.

Credits

Song Credits:

Melancholy Lull by Vital

Royalty Free Music: Bensound.com/royalty-free-music

License code: GHSG4LYAWYBKBEES

Many of our past episodes have focused on the South as the region with the most monuments of the Confederacy. However, the West isn’t immune from having controversial monuments as well. In this episode, we’ll turn our attention to the western United States, looking at Kit Carson and the controversial monuments that exist of him all around the wild west. We’re joined by Susan Lee Johnson, the Harry Reid Endowed Chair for the History of the Intermountain West at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Her most recent book, Writing Kit Carson: Fallen Heroes in a Changing West, discusses this western figure and his evolving history as historians reconcile with his past.

Credits
Song Credits:
Melancholy Lull by Vital
Royalty Free Music: Bensound.com/royalty-free-music
License code: GHSG4LYAWYBKBEES