Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization

by Neil deGrasse Tyson

In 2020 more than one hundred monuments were removed, mostly of Confederate Civil War commanders—all in full uniform, many on horses. Statues such as these, especially those that stood silent guard over Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia, all remind me of slavery. We’ve come a long way since the Civil War. I’ve even been awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Richmond. During my life, I’ve achieved what was surely unthinkable to each of these Confederate leaders—and honored for it in the cradle of the American South and birthplace of General Robert E. Lee. Yes, that’s progress, but these statues nonetheless evoke in me the country’s darkest era. I’m not debilitated by these thoughts, but they do represent a kind of socio-emotional tax I pay. Maybe all these men were kind and noble members of their community. Maybe they were pious Christians and went to church each Sunday. Maybe they helped rescue cats from trees. Could all be true. That’s not why these equestrian statues were cast in their honor. The soldiers are memorialized for defending the Southern way of life from an incursion of Northern aggressors. But there is no Southern way of life that isn’t economically and culturally conjoined with the fate of four million enslaved Africans—fully a third of the South’s population.8 To sustain the hierarchy requires an endemic belief system of racial inferiority, complete with laws that prevented the education of Negroes. A key step when you want to feel superi...