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i'm alex whitt at msnbc headquarters in new york. here it is. taking to the streets there, politics, that is, white nationalists and counterprotesters clashing for a second weekend. the challenge authorities have maintaining control in nationwide rallies and how this is changing our national debate. the stand against hate has made its way to boston. you're taking a look at an estimated 20,000 people. we're marching in protest of a planned right wing rally that has been over now for some half hour. that rally was disbanded. only about two dozen people reportedly showed up according to one reporter witness there. however, more than 500 police officers remain on the streets, trying to keep the peace, make sure we don't escalate into violence similar to what we saw a week ago this time in charlottesville, virginia. nbc's garrett hague has been with the counterprotesters who

made their way to the boston common or got darn close. but you guys were stopped a couple blocks short of the boston common. where are you now? >> reporter: that's right, alex. i was with the last group of those counterprotesters to finally make their way to boston common and for the charlottesville, virginia i was working with, by the time they got here, the event they came to protest was already over. throughout the day, we've been talking about how there's been a lot of different groups who were involved in this protest. and right now here on boston common, all these groups have split up. the socialists are having their own little rally. there's a black lives matter group. there's a group called fight supremacy, which is one of the main organizers here. they're having a rally just a little bit off camera here. so that big group has sort of broken off. a lot of what i would call the weekender protesters who came out to be part of this, finished their walk over here and headed home. there was a marching band playing when they got here. there was a festive atmosphere at the time. along the edges of this very big park, essentially, there have

been a number of skirmishes with police. there's still one or two folks. there's a young man in a donald trump jersey, like a football jersey, arguing with some people. so, there are some people interested in still causing some kind of trouble here or having some kind of dial thogue that mt be a little bit more than indoor voices and conversational and constructive, but by and large, that 15,000 to 20,000 group has made it here to the commons, sort of checked the box, completed their mission, and as you mentioned, outnumbered the event that they were here to protest by a factor of, you know, a couple thousand to one. so, for the organizers of this counterprotest today, i think a successful day so far and hopefully these things around the edges wrap up here without anybody being hurt. >> okay, garrett, we thank you for keeping an eye on that for us. we'll check back to make sure people are dispersing peacefully. let's bring in kelly o'donnell. she's in new jersey, not too far from tramp national golf club. a welcome to you on this

saturday. knowing about how much television the president watches, is there a sense that he may respond to what we're seeing in boston, maybe take it as an opportunity to try to reset the message he gave this week in the aftermath of charlottesville. >> well, it's a good question, and unfortunately, i don't have an answer for you, because we have not heard any specific guidance from the white house. it is also a beautiful day in new jersey, and the president may be golfing. the white house typically will not tell us if he's doing that or not. we know that not long ago, just about 20 minutes ago, he tweeted about steve bannon. of course, the chief skrat gitr who left the white house yesterday, saying steve bannon will be a tough and smart new voice at breitbart news, maybe even better than before. he goes on to say fake news needs the competition. so, the president is not completely off the grid, so to speak. he is at least using his phone and paying attention to some of those things. we don't know if he is watching

what's unfolding in boston. typically, you would have, perhaps, the president weighing in on something like this, but it's been hard to determine what his sort of tempo on something like this will be. it has been certainly a very big demonstration today. it's the kind of thing where he might just simply back off and not say anything, or he, in this instance, used a different topic to say something that was more on his mind. so, hard to predict, but the fact that we're now on day 16 of a 17-day vacation, he may be trying to get in a little of his last family time and golf time at his home. >> and kelly, i want to tell folks that we were looking at a live picture of police. very, very strong presence of riot police marching down the street. it would appear to me that they were taking off from the protests. they were marching in uniform down the sidewalk, cars are back in business, you know, streets have been opened up. so, let's hope that they are just heading home and have deemed this to be a peaceful protest at this point.

can i ask you quickly, kelly, about general looking to the, you know, the new white house chief of staff, looking to structure the white house messaging on the issue of race relations and perhaps more specifically this allegiance that the far right groups have to president trump. do we have any indication that that has maybe placed higher on his agenda than it would have prior to last weekend? >> well, that, too, is a good question, and i don't have a specific answer. what i can tell you is that john kelly as chief of staff has trying to streamline the lines of operation, trying to rely on senior staff to remain in their lanes and focused on the areas where they have some expertise or knowledge or some policy assignment. because of what has played out here over the last days with charlottesville and because of the president's handling of it and so much criticism, it's hard for me to know if they are trying to do anything to remedy that. we don't have any indication of that yet. at the same time, this white house does have its own sort of

liaison to minority communities, and it has -- that's part of every white house. they too have that to try to, perhaps, have more of a conversation going. you might, in a different time and place, see an invitation for a kind of a meeting with the president or a kind of giving of a voice to some of the concerns that have played out. we just don't know yet. the president has been at camp david for an extensive meeting on a very serious subject of what is going to happen with afghanistan. and that, of course, as commander in chief, is a significant challenge for him. a new strategy or the latest version of a strategy, something where there was a lot of pressure for him to reach some resolution. so, that's how he spent most of friday, with the senior team, meeting at camp david because that's a secure military facility, trying to talk about those issues. whether there will be any specific response to some of

these issues and the questions around race, we simply don't know, and at this point, the president does have a campaign event coming up this week where he'll be going to arizona, and that will be interesting to watch if he reflects any of what's happened in the last week when he is at a lectern in front of a big crowd. sometimes he does. >> very good point. we'll keep an eye out for that in arizona. kelly o'donnell in new jersey, meantime, thank you so much for that. let's bring in james peterson, author, historian, and msnbc contributor. james, hello to you on this day. many of these protesters today in boston, they said they're there to make a statement following last weekend's white nationalist rally. what do you think, is this another mass demonstration influenced by the president's actions or inaction or does it percolate to something bigger than that, even. >> well, i think we're seeing a lot of energy and activism around this issue and this particular moment, because of what we were doing last week, which is we were watching this tragic series of events unfold,

and what happens is when you don't get presidential leadership to comment forcefully against that kind of hate in american society, what you ultimately feel as a citizen here is that you have to take some things into your own hands so this is why you see thousands, some people say 15,000, 20,000, thousands of people in the streets in boston, and i think there were about 20 of the sort of actual free speech protesters there. the reason why those numbers are so lopsided is because those numbers are lopsided in the population of america. overwhelmingly in america, folks are not white supremacists. of course there's bias and there's racism throughout the nation, but the reality is, when people saw that vice news documentary and got sort of an insight into the world of what white supremacy, neo-naziism and neoconfederates and the kkk looks like, folks were disgusted by that and you're seeing those folks out here in the streets in boston today because they want to make sure that the world also knows that there's plenty of folks in this country who do not

subscribe to those beliefs. >> and far right groups have promised they're going to take all their protests across the country, and i hope we have this graphic from the southern poverty law center, which shows the location of all of the confederate-era monuments or those that are, you know, honoring that era. do these protests help or hurt the case for keeping confederate monuments? what do you think? >> that's an interesting question. i think ultimately, protests by these kinds of groups, by groups like unite the right, by these confederate groups, by white supremacist groups, by the kkk, those protests, i think, hurt the cause. my sense about this whole statue piece is kind of complicated. i think i want to have the conversation about these individual statues. i would love for folks to know more about the history of robert e. lee, about the history of chief justice taney. i think it's important for people to know that that's american history, so i want to have that conversation, but we should look at the historical record and understand that many of these statues are erected in response to progress around

liberation and freedom and citizenship, specifically for black folks in this country. and if they're used in that kind of reactionary way, then i think it's a great argument for taking them down. we shouldn't take them down without having the conversation. >> should we be having the conversation about real causes in the civil war, why monuments to confederatesy leaders are offensive to so many people in so many places. >> i believe we should, and the conversation actually should be broader than that. we certainly should talk about, you know, what was as the sort of centerpiece in terms of liberation and enslavement around the civil war, and what, you know, every sort of elected political official in the united states, though, alex, we should be clear here. when you are elected into office, you take an oath to protect the united states constitution. folks are talking about the confederacy as rebels, and they're rebelling against the u.s. constitution so elected officials have to take a certain piece of this, but scholars, activists, historians can have this debate. when you look at the history of when many of these confederate

statues are erected, they're reactionary monuments. they're trying to commemorate white supremacy in the face of progress around racial justice so that's a history that we have to deal with. but listen, there's also a broader conversation to have about the ways in which systemic racism infects the american body politic today. we can look at access to health care. we can look at life expectancy. we can look at the prison industrial complex. there's systemic racism and we can have that conversation at the very same time. it's complicated, but the reality is that unless and until we're able to work through the conflicts of these issues, we will never be able to root racism out of our society. >> it's a conversation i'm tlog have with you any time, any place. thank you for joining us today. steve bannon says he's only going to war against the president's opponents but what if bannon sees those opponents inside the white house? i was a doer. i was active. then the chronic, widespread pain drained my energy. my doctor said moving more helps ease fibromyalgia pain. she also prescribed lyrica. fibromyalgia is thought to be the result

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at 16 past the hour, you're looking live at the city of boston aerial view clearly there where an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 marchers turned out to protest a right wing rally that really didn't seem to have materialized. it was a so-called free speech rally. it has now concluded according to police, about 45 minutes ago. one witness told us she saw only about 20 people there at one point in that rally and said those voices were drowned out. you couldn't even hear what they were saying and that is because of the counterprotest. massive crowds turned out there. there were a few small skirmishes in the crowd. we've been watching that as people seem to be breaking away from downtown boston commons. largely, though, it has been peaceful. joining me now is a former nba player with the boston celtics and lead radio analyst. he has joined the counterprotesters. cedric, glad to talk with you. tell me what you experienced today out on the streets. >> what you saw was tolerance.

i think that the people who were here were lined up, and they were all about being accountable. they wanted to show their true self-s. they did that. if you stayed home and you are -- you don't show up, then you don't really have a voice. the people of boston have a voice. i think there were only about maybe 30, 40, i guess, white supremacists, but other than that, it was just basically about 25,000 people on the counter-side who were shouting all kind of things but i didn't see anything physical at all. >> yeah, and so what were yaw talking about with the people as you were marching along toward boston common? i mean, what is it that they want to see done? do they talk about a change from the trump administration? do they talk about political change? what is it you hope that you see that they hope they want? >> well, i just think that they wanted tolerance.

they did not want intolerance and i think that's what they felt like when those sympathizers were in the middle of their park. essentially, i live right across the street from the park, so i had to come over here because it would be like having, you know, a parade in your living room and you being in your bedroom and not coming out. so it was a lot of people who wanted to confront and show their support and love and respect. you saw all kind of different signs. you know, some of them were more about trump, but most of them were about just the -- just love and peace and tolerance. >> yeah. well, cedric maxwell, thanks so much for phoning in, and it looks like you were successful in promoting an air of tolerance with those that you were marching today. >> absolutely. >> thank you, cedric. >> thank you so much for having me. >> all righty. let's bring in jeff mason, white house correspondent for reuters, edward isaac, chief washington correspondent for politico, adrian, white house correspondent for buzzfeed news and miles standish, white house

columnist at the hill. jeff, i'm going to start with you because we know the president watches a lot of television. do you think he might take this massive outpourings of counterprotesters as an opportunity to reset the message he gave this week? >> boy, it's hard to say, alex. i mean, he tried to reset that message on monday and then on tuesday, after he left the white house and got back to trump tower, he went back to the original message that he had given on that saturday. so, i think he had the opportunity to reset the message and, in fact, what he did on tuesday is really say what he was thinking. he was clearly irritated by the criticism he had received for his initial response. and that all came out on tuesday and that has only inflamed the entire situation more as you have seen. as we have seen. so, it seems hard for me to imagine that he would go and try to reset it again, although no doubt, the white house is studying that, because of the backlash that it has received. >> yeah. and edward, in terms of studying, do you get a sense that general kelly, the newly

installed chief of staff is looking to structure the white house messaging of the issues of race relations or even more specifically this allegiance that the far right groups have to president trump. >> it pretty obviously does not matter what john kelly or anyone else who works in the white house would try to do to contain or direct the president. he directs his own messaging. he directs his own thinking. he tends to explode, essentially, when he feels constrained, when he feels like someone has told him what he has to do, whether that's a staffer or a general media sense. that is part of what happened in between the statement on monday -- the statement on saturday, initially, after charlottesville, and then the statement on monday and then obviously that press conference that he had on tuesday. i don't think that we should assume that we're going to see any kind of long-term structural change out of donald trump. he is donald trump. he believes that he has a way of doing this, and so far, no one

has been successful at changing that despite a lot of supposed people along the way who were going to. >> all right, then, let me try another avenue with you, adrian. is it naive to think that the president's rhetoric on racism will change because steve bannon has left the white house? >> i mean, i think that what we saw from the beginning, and you see it in joshua green's book about bannon, you know, "devil's bargain" that trump and bannon were sort of looking for each other for a while, right? and people tell me that bannon is sort of this strategist, the idealogue but trump was there lock step with him. to think he would change his view on race would be a little naive because what you saw when he came out during the press conference this week, that was him angry about him being told what he should do. he bristles if he's told to be politically correct or that there's a certain way of doing things, and he kind of fights those shackles and he says what he wants to say.

>> i want to fold into this discussion, the departure from trump's evangelical board. reverend bernhard is a senior pastor at the christian cultural center, not too far from where we are at 30 rock, located in brooklyn. here's what he told my leagcolle earlier. >> there was hope. as a christian, we're thinking hope, we're thinking redemption. that is the window through which we see the world and there was hope there. but after a while, you have to make a decision. every decision you make in life is a value judgment and i had to determine cost versus worth. how much is this costing me to continue in this relationship and how much is it worth? is it worth that time, effort, and it took me 40 years to build my credibility. and my reputation, you see? and that goes away in four or eight years if it lasts that long. >> so now the pastor is not outright saying charlottesville was the last straw for him but talk to us why you think

evangelical leaders are staying on. do you think it might change president trump's message on the far right groups if he starts to lose more of this support. >> i'm not sure it changes his message because as your other guests have said, he has a knee jerk tendency to strike back against anything he's criticized for. as far as the silence of other members of evangelical council, that silence has been rather deafening. they have received criticism for its in some quarters but of course we have people on that council, including jerry falwell jr., who support what the president said about charlottesville. mr. falwell tweeted to that effect. for good or for bad. a lot of people would disagree with his position vehemently. i also would quickly point out that i think there can be a tendency sometimes to see religious leaders as separate from political calculation. i think that religious leaders of all denominations are often motivated as much by political concerns and what they can get

out of a certain situation as any elected official is. >> yeah. all right, gentlemen, i've been told i have to wrap with all of you, all four of you, total rock stars, jeff, edward, adrian, and nile, thank you so much for joining me. as we continue to monitor the events in boston, some other cities are gearing up for events of their own. this is how it looks right now in venice. that is just next to santa monica in southern california. that's where about 100 protesters or so. they are marching against the alt-right. we're going keep a watch on the scene there throughout the hour. we'll talk to the president of the african-american mayors association about the concerns of black mayors across this country. stay with us. you're watching msnbc live.

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to a free speech rally all in downtown boston. just to give you a little bit of perspective here, close to 20,000 people are estimated in the crowd that you're looking at right there. these were people that came from all walks of life, clergy, socialists, soccer moms, anti-fascists, black lives matter supporters, those that are supporting the lgbtq movement, all types. they were all there to, as cedric maxwell of the boston celtics had told us earlier, he had told us they were all looking just for an air of tolerance in the wake of what happened in charlottesville last weekend with the white nalgss, kkk rally there. they had looked for some sort of a level of tolerance. it appears that's what they got. the free speech rally, which was scheduled earlier inside the boston common park was attended to by some counts, one eye-witness told us about 20 people were there. that is all compared to the 20,000 that were there for

counterprotest movement. cedric maxwell said there may have been as many as 40 there. completely a dwarfed movement by what you're seeing on the streets. things are dissipating. we haven't seen too much in the way of skirmishes, little things here and there, but we're going to get with a reporter from the boston globe and talk with her about what she saw there. meantime, up next, fighting white supremacy on the local level, how one mayor is leading the charge in her community. stay with us. you don't let anything keep you sidelined. that's why you drink ensure. with 9 grams of protein and 26 vitamins and minerals.

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welcome back, everyone. i'm alex whitt here at msnbc world headquarters in new york. at 33 past the hour, here's what we're monitoring for you. the estimated 20,000 people or having turned out in boston today to march against hate in a relatively peaceful protest. we did see a few minor clashes about an hour or so ago but nothing like the violence we saw in charlottesville one week ago today. joining me on the phone, "boston globe" reporter akilah johnson. i'm looking at a couple of tweets you put out there.

interesting stuff. we were not able to capture with our cameras but one you talk about a crowd burning confederate flags on the common which is starting to have a festival feel without the torching of the confederate flag, that is. so talk about the things that you saw. >> well, i mean, i'm still seeing. there's still a large out here and it still does feel relatively peaceful and like a festival. there was just a skirmish where police had to escort a young man from the common after he was chased by a crowd. i'm not sure what the impetus of that was. but the crowd was shouting at him, you know, nazi leave, nazi, go home. and he was -- they were surrounded and a group of boston police officers had to escort him off but that's like a oneoff kind of feel. after the march through the city to the common, it's very much kind of people just dispersed and dispersed as in, like, different groups, large groups, milled around with signs, some

drum circles, that kind of thing. >> yeah. and that person you're talking about, the guy who the boston police department was escorting down. i'm looking at another tweet. you heard a counterprotester say, it's for your own good, kid, because we'd eat you alive. >> different situation. the tweet you're referring to happened almost -- well, not almost immediately but soon after the marchers hit the common. the skirmish that i just witnessed, i literally just witnessed when i was on the phone waiting to connect with you. >> but in terms of any violence, there may have been some, you know, violent words perhaps, but you saw nobody striking each other, there was no sort of things that were able to be snuck in there, no batons, no baseball bats, anything like that, you know, water bottles thrown, did you see anything like that? >> no. i mean, the young man who was just chased and escorted out

looked like he had silly string coming from the back of his head. but that was the extent of the violence that was propagated towards him. >> yeah. so overall, how would you categorize this? what are the adjectives you would use to have described this situation today? which, i presume, is dispersing. i mean, yes, there are people still there, but redirect examination -- are the crowds thinning out. >> it's largely over. people are talking about going to get lunch at this point in the day. it's been peaceful. it's been positive. it's been uniting. a lot of, you know, it's been a very diverse crowd, racially, age-wise, members of the lgbtq community are here. members of various races and religions are here. and they've all kind of come together for a collective purpose so it's been very positive overall. >> do you get a sense they're walking away feeling good, that almost there was a victory, particularly if you look at the numbers, and you may be able to

confirm these numbers for us. we were told from various sources, anywhere from 20 to 40 of the free speech rally members, that's all that was there. and then you look at the thousands upon thousands marching in the street to counter that message. so would you say the counterprotesters walk away feeling victorious? >> i mean, if you were to take the comments from those in the crowd and the organizers when they were speaking and when it's over, that's definitely how they feel. they feel that boston put on the right show today. >> all right. from the "boston globe," reporter akilah johnson. appreciate that. and to another reporter, let's go to nbc's garrett hague with the protesters as they made their way to the boston common. he was the counterprotester movement. let's make that clear. talk about the tenor of things, how they feel about it and anyone with whom you spoke today. sense of victory having gotten their message across peacefully? >> reporter: i think that's

right, alex. i have to echo what akilah said. if you're part of the counterprotest group here, you accomplished exactly what you set out. to numerically, they swashed the actual protest itself and then we're talking about the issues that matter to the counterprotesters, not the issues that matter to the folks who had set up this free speech event that so many of them were concerned it would turn into a hate speech event. ruben davis drove an hour and a half to be here. how do you feel with everything you've seen here? do you feel like the counterprotesters got the message out that you guys wanted to get out? >> absolutely. i'm from springfield, massachusetts, and i think that the venue has been a positive one, and a very beautiful one. looking at the faces of america, as you can see, all colors, all nationalities, all together against evil. >> i mean, you know, we've seen some of these little skirmishes, some little back and forth with police, but i have to ask you because people are asking me. have you seen anything spill

over, any kind of violence or anything like that today. >> no, i have not seen anything negative. all i have seen is just people altogether chanting, you know, black lives matter, we all are together. down with naziism and hatred. >> how important is that? i mean, how important is it to the fact that there was no -- or no significant violence or anything kind of trouble like that here today, to getting the message across. >> well, as long as it doesn't happen -- what happened in charlottesville, virginia. every message is positive. >> and we were talking earlier about the message getting out of here and the president of the united states and what would you want the president -- the folks in washington, d.c., to see if they turn on their tvs tonight and see these big crowds of people in boston. >> i want donald trump, our president, to be the president of the people. the people are all colors, all nationalities. not one group of people. it's all people. so i just want the president to

support it if he's going to make this country great, it's for all. >> i think we'll leave it there. ruben davis iii from spring field, thank you for your time. i think that's a pretty good encapsulation of what we're hearing from people on the ground today. there are folks outside protesting. you can hear the black lives matter chants coming from over my shoulder. we're going to get closer to that here in a minute, but by and large, this event, the counterprotest, which did turn out to be the event today, wrapping up and the folks largely pleased with how their message got out and hopefully is received across the country. >> thank you very much for helping them get that message out today. we appreciate that. and i know we'll talk with you again. meantime, coming up next, everyone, we're going to talk with a local politician who not only wants to remove confederate statues but some folks from the white house as well. we're going tell you specifically who. and then in the next hour, business leaders losing faith in the president, the impact this could have on legislation and wall street. ♪

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a change of heart for charlottesville mayor mike singer. he was one of two members of the city council who voted to keep the statue of robert e. lee standing in emancipation park. he now says it's a mistake to keep such symbols in place. >> i don't think they're safe here. i don't think that they are appropriate in our civic spaces downtown, and i'm going to support the call of lots of other officials that they should be moved out of civic spaces. >> and joining me now, mayor tony harp, president of the african-american mayors association as well as mayor of new haven, connecticut. mayor, thank you so much for joining me. i'd like to talk about your organization, which has a five-part plan all in response to the events of charlottesville and that would claw cainclude ao take down all symbols of the confederacy, naziism, other white supremacist groups but you're probably aware of a new poll that says 62% of americans are in favor of keeping statues

in place. what do you think it's going to take for a change of heart for them to go along with your organization's plan? >> you know, i think that one of the things that we see is that these symbols incite violence. they incite hate. and it certainly isn't what our country is all about. we're a country of many cultures and when you think about the confederacy, that war was lost a long time ago, and to have those statues around really create a lot of hatred, and they're symbols that others rally around that provide negative and destructive things in our communities. so as far as i'm concerned, they've got to come down. >> but ma'am, to those who say you cannot change history and by removing confederate statues it erases a part of your history, our history, what do you say to that? >> well, i say that another part of our history is the fact that

we had slavery in our country, and that our country -- the wealth of our country, the foundation of its wealth was free slave labor. we don't see monuments to that, and there really probably ought to be when you think about how important it was to the economic sustainability and development of this country, and so the fact that we no longer adhere to a system of slavery, we ought to remove those statues. they incite riots. people went to charlottesville, open carry place, carrying weapons. it could have been much worse than it was. >> yeah. bad enough as it was. i know that you are also calling for steven miller and sebastian gorka to be removed from the administration. i'd like to get your reaction to steve bannon resigning. >> we are really happy that he was removed. and i think that it's really

important that those with extreme ideas be removed from the administration so that they're not constantly in the president's ear. we need to have people who advise the president believe in the values of america, believe that all people are created equal. and you can't have people who are the alt-right, who are extremists, who don't believe that everyone is equal, constantly in the ear of the president. >> i'm curious, before i ask you a bit about law enforcement and training in that, i know that you're the mayor of new haven, connecticut, which means that the esteemed university yale sits within your jurisdiction there. talk about the youth there of yale, the way students are taught, the way they are able to express themselves. do you ever have concerns about students getting out of control? do you see any presence of hey groups and the like on that university campus? >> no, just the opposite.

i really see very little in terms of hate groups. there were some in surrounding communities that came to new haven, and the students engaged in a counterprotest. there was a college named calhoun college, and mr. calhoun was a big slave owner, and the students of yale demanded that the name of that college be changed, and so as a result, we're really not seeing any of that in new haven. as a matter of fact, new haven is a welcoming city, and college students helped to define what welcoming means. >> let's get to that point i was making, the african-american mayors association calling for additional law enforcement sources to train police in crowd management. also in identifying and eliminating white supremacist groups. what about those who argue that such groups are protected under the first amendment? >> not if they're violent.

it's peaceful assembly under the law. if they come for a violent means, they're not protected under the first amendment. and you know, there were people, and there are open carry states, there were people openly carrying, as i said before, you know, if you come with the intent of violence, you're not protected under the first amendment. >> all right. mayor of new haven, connecticut, mayor toni harp, thank you, ma'am, for your time. appreciate it here on msnbc. still ahead, a historian tells us why he thinks removing confederate symbols is not a slippery slope. (boy) and these are the lungs. (class) ewwww! (boy) sorry. (dad) don't worry about it. (mom) honey, honey, honey, honey! (vo) at our house, we need things that are built to last. that's why we got a subaru. (avo) love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru.

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welcome back, everyone. president trump says removing confederate symbols is a slippery slope and it can lead to erasing american history. is that the case? joining me now, james grossman, executive director of the american historical association. james, big welcome to you. so, the question is posed. what is your answer to that

question? is that the case, what president trump was saying, that we're erasing american history by removing statues? >> no. i think that in this case, at least, the president is misinformed or perhaps distorting notions of history or both. when we take a statue and take it down and move it, say, to a museum, we're not erasing history. what we are doing is saying that we have chosen not to honor somebody or something in our public space. and that's the case with any monument. that's what monuments do is they commemorate, they honor. in some cases, they commemorate disasters, bad things. there's a 9/11 memorial. obviously, that's not honoring somebody in a sense, other than the heroes who saved people. but in most cases, and certainly the statues we're talking about, these were erected to honor people, and so we have to ask ourselves, what is it they were

being honored for? >> yeah, and to that point, james, do you find that people remain uncertain or confused by the main reason behind the confederacy? >> i think people are insufficiently knowledgeable about two things here, and i know that most people are in favor of leaving these statues up. >> 62%. >> yeah, my guess is that also many of those people actually are not aware, necessarily, of either what it is that's being commemorated or what the reason was for erecting these statues in the first place. so the first question you've asked is about the confederacy itself. and there is sort of a fog that was quite purposefully created in the late 19th and early 20th century during the establishment of jim crow regime in the south and disenfranchisement. there's sort of this fog of the

old south, "gone with the wind," and that's not quite what the confederacy was straightforwardly about. anybody who's watching this show can sit at their computer and google mississippi declaration of secession or any southern state, declaration of secession, or alexander stevens, who was the vice president of the confederacy, and the words corner stone speech. and you will immediately see straightforward explanations of the purpose of the establishment of the confederate states of america. and they're very clear about it. they're not shy. they make it very clear that they are seceding and establishing this new nation for the purpose of protecting slavery. protecting the right of some individuals to own others. that's it. that's the reason they're creating it. so, when you're commemorating robert e. lee, stonewall jackson, you're commemorating people for this one single

achievement. these guys don't have some other achievement. it's not like you're saying, well, there's someone who had this long career, they did this, they did that, we're willing to excuse acts because they did y. these guys have statues for one reason, which is their role in the leadership of attempting to create the confederate states of america, which had this singular purpose. so that's one thing. and i encourage everybody who's watching to do that one googling exercise. and they can see this for themselves. the second -- >> make your second point and i'll do that and not ask my last question. >> your second question was, why are they there, and the answer is, actually, it was less about commemorating the old south and the confederacy than it was for a political purpose. first during the late 19th and especially early 20th century, and then during the civil rights movement. these statues were erected in the early 20th century during the creation of the jim crow

regime in essence to tell everybody who's on top and who's not. >> yeah. >> and in the second instance, it's a way of -- of civil rights. >> during the 1960s. >> that's right. and again, if anybody's doubtful about this, quick things. one is the -- >> very quickly. >> there's a cemetery in lexington, virginia, that was called perresbyterian cemetery. it was changed to stonewall jackson cemetery in 1949. why? this is clear. >> yeah. unfortunately, we are out of time, but it has been fascinating listening to you, and i can see why you're the executive director of the american historical association. thank you so much, james grossman, for your insights, abbreviated as they had to be here. thanks so much for watching. jacob soboroff is picking it up at the top of the hour with new pictures on the ground, from the air as well, from protesters across this country. i'll see you at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow eastern.

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