HBO’s John Oliver takes on Confederate monuments, enlists Stephen Colbert for help

Last Week Tonight host John Oliver enlisted the help of Stephen Colbert to explain why Confederate monuments should be removed or replaced.

Oliver, whose show airs on HBO on Sundays, spent the majority of the episode focusing on the debate surrounding the removal of Confederate statutes taking place across the country.

Oliver noted that the majority of Confederate monuments were erected as “a pretty hostile message to African Americans” during the early 1900s as “white southerners were reasserting their dominance through things like Jim Crow laws” and in the 1950s and 1960s as the civil rights movement was gaining steam.

Which is why he suggested Confederate monuments be placed in museums. In their place, monuments for those “who really deserve it” should be erected instead, he said.

In Beaufort County, South Carolina, Oliver suggested a statute of Robert Smalls, who was born into slavery but famously sailed a Confederate ship to freedom. Smalls ultimate held office in both the S.C. Legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives.

For Charleston, however, he had a live-speaking suggestion.

“Why have a divisive Confederate statute when instead that pedestal can be filled by your favorite son, the actual Stephen Colbert, who will stand up there all day telling you fun facts about your wonderful South,” Oliver said.

“Charleston is the site of the first free public library in America,” Colbert said.

Colbert went on to share a few more details of the area, including Zugunruhefest by The Center for Birds of Prey and how Charleston has been featured as Travel and Leisure’s No.1 U.S. destination for the last five years.

Oliver called on Charleston to “have this in your life.”

This story was originally published October 9, 2017 at 6:29 AM with the headline "HBO’s John Oliver takes on Confederate monuments, enlists Stephen Colbert for help."