‘We don’t remove history’: Mizzou will not remove Thomas Jefferson statue

COLUMBIA, Mo. — An online petition with more than 3,300 signatures is calling for the removal of a Thomas Jefferson statue on the University of Missouri campus, but schools officials said they will not remove it.

Roman Leapheart, a sophomore at the university and the creator of the petition, said the monument reaffirms white supremacy and “is a legacy of the brutally racist Jim Crow era.”

Jefferson, the third president of the United States, is known to have owned more than 600 slaves and to have fathered numerous children with former slave Sally Hemings in what some people have argued could not have been a consensual relationship.

"Mizzou has no room for a racist slave owner on our campus ... where thousands of black students pass by everyday, forced to deal with imagery of the past in the future where we should be promoting equality, diversity and inclusion,” the petition description reads. “A memorial of a racist has no place on (our) campus.”

The petition is addressed to University of Missouri System President Mun Choi, who met with Leapheart Thursday to discuss the statue. Leaders of the Legion of Black Collegians and curators at the university also attended the meeting, according to Fox News.

“The conversation was an example of the power of civil discourse and included discussion of complex issues and different perspectives,” Choi said in a statement released Friday. “After further discussion with other curators, the university decided not to remove the Jefferson statue. We learn from history. We contextualize historical figures with complex legacies. We don’t remove history.”

Leaphart told the Kansas City Star that he’s frustrated, but he’s not giving up hope.

“I believe too much in what I stand for,” he said.

Choi said that school officials “are committed to maintaining open lines of communication, including continuing conversations and learning from all involved.”

He recommended that university faculty and students explore how the university can contextualize Jefferson as a historical figure.

Leaphart believes it’s time for less conversation and more action.

“I was told explicitly that ... they mainly want to have conversations,” Leapheart told The Columbia Missourian. “One thing Mizzou seems to do very well — it seems to love its conversations. Folks are tired of conversations, frankly. If Mizzou doesn’t take the statue down, someone else will.”

The Jefferson statue, which was unveiled on Mizzou’s campus in 2001, has been the subject of scrutiny before.

In 2015, a group called Concerned Student 1950 challenged the university, demanding action against campus racism, The Columbia Missourian reported. Students protested and created a petition similar to Leapheart’s. They even covered the Jefferson statue with sticky notes that read “racist,” “rapist” and “slave seller.”

“If we remove a statue, we don’t address the bigger picture, but the bigger picture can’t be addressed overnight,” Leapheart said. “We have to start somewhere.”

Elsewhere in the U.S. many people are demanding the removal of other monuments that memorialize former slave owners, Confederate leaders and other controversial figures.

In Boston, a statue of Christopher Columbus was temporarily removed last week after it was vandalized. Another Christopher Columbus statue was torn down and thrown into a river by protesters in Richmond, Virginia. In Bristol, England, protesters toppled a statue of Edward Colston, who helped transport approximately 80,000 men, women and children from Africa to the Americas to be traded as slaves, the BBC reported.

“This is a very deciding time in the country right now,” Leapheart said. “I know at Mizzou ... that’s a hard thing to do. But (calling for the statue’s removal is) something we had to do. We need to make a stand.”

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Cox Media Group