Pelosi says portraits of 4 Confederate House speakers will be removed from the Capitol

At a press conference on Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said portraits of four former House speakers who served in the Confederacy will be removed from the U.S. Capitol.

Video Transcript

NANCY PELOSI: Tomorrow is Juneteenth, a day that we observe as a day of freedom in our country. It was a day that people in the west found out about the Emancipation Proclamation. In observance of that, I have sent a letter, which you will see, to the clerk of the House directing that the clerk to remove the portraits of four previous Speakers of the House who served in the Confederacy.

We didn't know about this until we were taking inventory of the statues and the curator told us that there were four paintings of Speakers in the capital of the United States, four Speakers who had served in the Confederacy. So tomorrow, Juneteenth, the clerk will oversee the removal of those Confederate Speakers from the House.

As I've said before, there is no room in the hallowed halls of this democracy, this temple of democracy, to memorialize people who embody violent bigotry and grotesque racism of the Confederacy. You have to see the remarks that they had made and how oblivious they were to what our founders had in mind in our country. We must lead by example. So we're glad that that is gone.