History should be shared

Leif Erikson is back on his pedestal just in time for Scandinavian Heritage Day next Sunday.

His statue, shined and buffed, went back up last week at Shilshole Bay Marina, where he reminds us how important history is to people in the present. The Times' story about the reinstallation quoted a Norwegian emigrant saying, "Here, we can look at something that reminds us where we came from."

We celebrate the roots that tell us and others both where we came from and who we are. That's fine — except when one group's history runs into another, which is bound to happen in a country as diverse as ours.

In cases where there are unresolved problems in the present, you can expect conflicts about the past.

About this time last year the University of Texas was rededicating a statue of Martin Luther King Jr., which had been egged one year and spray-painted the next.

Vandalism is an occupational hazard for some statues.

The statue of King is a recent addition to the UT campus, which has long featured Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, and Robert E. Lee, who led the rebel army.

Some people have been trying for years to have them and other Confederate statues removed.

The guy responsible for the statues, George Washington Littlefield, was a wealthy banker and cattleman, a former slave owner who served in the Confederate army and wanted the university to keep alive the memory of that cause.

He funded a huge Southern history collection at UT to encourage a telling of American history more to his liking.

He'd be ticked to learn it now includes African-American history in the South.

There's probably material on folks like my mother, who used to pick cotton outside the West Texas town named for Littlefield.

We're all invested more in some aspects of the story than others. We could push one history centered on one group, or hold to a bunch of separate histories.

But the best thing is to have one big messy story that includes everybody, and that's hard to do.

We'd all have to give a little.

I hope they boot out that statue of Jefferson Davis, because you have to have some standards. But I'd keep Robert E. Lee.

Lee was a man of principle. He opposed the secession but fought out of loyalty to his state. Afterward he supported education for black people and tried to calm hotheads among former Confederates.

Lee might not have invited me to tea, but he's not any more flawed than Jefferson or Washington, or than King, who are all worth remembering for their positive actions.

His view seemed to be that if people behaved civilly toward one another time would heal wounds. That's a good start.

As for Leif Erikson, all that Viking pillaging is ancient history. Not too many people are invested in defending it or getting retribution from a statue.

I'd imagine the most Leif has to worry about are pigeons and sea gulls.

Jerry Large's column appears Monday and Thursday. Reach him at 206-464-3346 or jlarge@seattletimes.com.