Battlefield Monument, Vicksburg, Mississippi 1936

This is Walker Evans's photograph, "Battlefield Monument, Vicksburg, Mississippi." Evans, active during the Great Depression, captured the American South with unflinching realism. Here, a bronze equestrian statue dominates the frame. It's a Confederate monument, erected to commemorate a general, sword raised, forever frozen in a triumphant charge. But what does triumph mean on a battlefield soaked in the blood of a civil war fundamentally fought over the continued enslavement of Black people? Evans, as a photographer, had a deep interest in the vernacular and the everyday. The photograph captures not just a monument, but the weight of history and the stories it chooses to tell. Look at the horse's hoof, crushing a Union cannon – a visceral, almost violent declaration of Confederate pride. The monument looms, not just as a sculpture, but as a cultural artifact, forcing us to confront the complexities of memory, power, and the stories we choose to immortalize. Consider how this image resonates today, amidst ongoing conversations about Confederate symbols. It asks us to question whose stories are told, and whose are erased, in the grand narratives of history.