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BY: ROB MANESS
Shocking new allegations against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) are a reminder that much of the divisiveness in America today is manufactured by grifters and fraudsters who profit from hatred and hostility while pretending to combat it. But President Trump now has an opportunity to truly bring the country together this Independence Day by correcting one of the greatest lies that the SPLC helped spread by restoring the Reconciliation Monument to Arlington National Cemetery.
Late last week, the Department of Justice dropped a bombshell 11-count indictment on the SPLC for fraud. The indictment alleges that the organization funneled more than $3 million in donor money raised to “fight extremism” straight into the pockets of Ku Klux Klan leaders, neo-Nazis, Aryan Nations figures, and even organizers of the deadly Charlottesville Unite the Right rally.
In other words, DOJ alleges, while the SPLC claimed that it was working to dismantle “hate groups,” it was quietly bankrolling them in order to fuel the narrative that the United States is a hateful and racist country – and thus entice donors to give even more. Hypocrisy doesn’t even begin to cover it.
At the same time that the SPLC was apparently lining the pockets of actual extremist groups, they were also smearing patriotic Americans and historical monuments as racist and divisive. As one part of that crusade, the group helped spearhead the successful movement to pressure the Biden administration to remove Arlington National Cemetery’s Reconciliation Monument (the one the left loves to call a “Confederate Memorial”).
SPLC labeled the monument “pro-slavery” and “anti-American,” demanded that the Biden Pentagon tear it down, and celebrated another victory in their campaign to sanitize our past.
As I pointed out in a separate piece
, the Reconciliation Monument wasn’t some glorification of slavery or injustice. Built in 1914, it was a symbol of national healing. Commissioned under President William Howard Taft and sculpted by Moses Jacob Ezekiel, a Jewish Confederate veteran, Virginia Military Institute graduate, and one of the finest artists of his era, the monument stands (or stood) near the graves of nearly 500 Confederate soldiers, sailors, and civilians in Section 16. Its frieze depicts Southern life, black figures included, and its inscription calls for “peace” and “reconciliation.” It echoes Abraham Lincoln’s own words: binding up the nation’s wounds “with malice toward none.”
Ezekiel himself is buried at its base, having requested that the monument be his grave marker. The monument wasn’t about rewriting the Civil War; it was about acknowledging that Americans on both sides paid a terrible price, that most Confederate soldiers were fighting for home and hearth (not plantations they didn’t own), and that true unity comes from remembering the past honestly, not pretending it never happened.
Arlington itself is proof of this fact. Land once belonging to Robert E. Lee now holds the honored dead from every American war, including Union and Confederate soldiers. President William McKinley opened those graves to former Confederates in 1900 to heal the nation. That’s the American way.
Yet here we are. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth did the right thing last August when he announced that the monument would be restored,
the “woke lemmings” who ripped it down. “Unlike the Left, we don’t believe in erasing American history, we honor it,” he said.
The Army has announced plans for a $10 million refurbishment and reinstallation – but not until 2027. That timeline is too slow and rife with political landmines.
President Trump and Secretary Hegseth should accelerate the monument’s restoration. Get Moses Ezekiel’s masterpiece back in place before July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. What better way to celebrate the birth of our Republic than by rejecting the politics of division and historical erasure?
While the SPLC stands exposed for funding the very hatred they profit from, let’s show the world what real unity looks like and use this as a new reconciliation moment. Not the fake “equity” the left peddles, but the honest, hard-won unity that only comes from confronting our full history, slavery’s evil, the bravery of those who ended it, and the tragedy of brother-against-brother conflict.
Our troops, our veterans, and every American who still believes in “one nation under God” deserve a military that teaches the real lessons of Arlington: courage, sacrifice, and the hard road to reconciliation. Erasing monuments erases truth and reality itself, not racism.
As an American military officer and a member of a family whose military service began in July 1775, my lineage has spent 251 years fighting to preserve the values that make America the greatest nation on earth. The Reconciliation Monument represents those values, and it deserves a place of honor.
President Trump, you campaigned on this exact fight. Secretary Hegseth, you’ve already led the charge. Finish it by Independence Day. The American people – especially those who wear the uniform – are watching, and history will thank you.
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