How should we remember Ulysses S. Grant on his 200th birthday? As a Civil War hero and Civil Rights champion? Or as a slave holder and president who sought to assimilate indigenous Americans into white society?

Professors and Grant experts Joan Waugh and Brooks Simpson weigh in.

Sources:

An Interview with Mary Robinson, Formerly Enslaved at White Haven (National Park Service)

De Blasio Won't Say If Ulysses S. Grant Statue Is a Hate Symbol (Scott Heins, Gothamist)

San Francisco Protestors Topple Statues of Ulysses Grant and Other Slave Owners (Lois Beckett, The Guardian)

U.S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth (Joan Waugh, UNC Press)

Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph over Adversity 1822-1865 (Brooks Simpson, Zenith Press)