In recent years, the United States has undergone a significant shift in how it examines and challenges dominant racist narratives in public life. Statues and other forms of public art have become flashpoints in national debates about whether symbols rooted in white supremacy should continue to be upheld as “cultural heritage.” In June 2015, ten days after a racist massacre claimed the lives of nine Black churchgoers at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina, filmmaker, musician, and activist Bree Newsome climbed a thirty-foot flagpole to remove the Confederate flag from the South Carolina State House grounds. Her act of creative disobedience captured national attention and helped ignite a broader public reckoning with racist symbolism.

In the years that followed, a growing movement emerged to remove monuments and imagery that glorify and sustain the tenets of white supremacy. Concentrated initially in the southeastern United States, these removal efforts were often met with fierce opposition, including threats and acts of violence by those who viewed the monuments as physical representations of American heritage. In August 2017, three people were killed and nineteen injured at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which was organized in opposition to the planned removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The rally was widely considered the largest gathering of white nationalists in a decade.

Three years later, following the public release of video footage documenting the police murder of George Floyd and the nationwide protests that followed, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported the removal of 168 Confederate symbols in 2020 alone. As this movement expanded westward, efforts increasingly shifted from Confederate monuments tied to Jim Crow–era ideology to so-called “pioneer” monuments that continue to demean Indigenous peoples and perpetuate the false narrative that Native Americans have vanished. Erected during the same historical period, these monuments glorified settler colonialism, the subjugation of Indigenous peoples, and the genocide that accompanied westward expansion. Whether in the South or the West, the intent of these monuments was largely the same: to legitimize white dominance and to use public symbolism as a tool of intimidation, reinforcing a racial hierarchy that instructed both white and non-white communities about their “appropriate” place in society.

During debates over the removal of pioneer monuments, comparisons are often drawn to Confederate statuary. While many acknowledge that Confederate memorials should be removed due to their association with slavery, pioneer monuments are frequently defended as benign tributes to an “uncivilized” or “extinct” Native population. These arguments reveal a widespread lack of understanding of the United States’ history of Indigenous genocide and settler colonial violence. This absence of historical education has long undermined the efforts of Indigenous communities and their allies, who have advocated for decades for the removal of public symbols that reinforce racist and exclusionary narratives.

This framework is designed to support Indigenous Peoples and allied communities in seeking redress for the ongoing harm caused by false narratives and racist imagery in the public realm. By establishing a clear foundation, the framework aims to make education and advocacy efforts more accessible and effective, while minimizing the re-traumatization that often accompanies this work. It also calls on public institutions to take proactive responsibility for addressing harmful public art, shifting the burden away from marginalized communities and toward the institutions that uphold these symbols, and modeling pathways toward accountability, healing, and restorative justice.