Today, civil rights leader Dolores Huerta issued the following statement:

[summer_in_TX]

62. Delores Huerta has been one of my heroes for decades.

I understand her silence all those years. And I admire her courage to speak of such painful things now. We have many men who accomplished good, even great things, in our history who also have a dark and sometimes even cruel streak. It's true of women too sometimes. How to make sense of it, to not throw out the good only because of the bad, but not to cover up or ignore the bad, the pain and trauma is a difficult question. I think of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, others.

Some want to tear down all traces of them. All the monuments, statues, honoring in history books, street names and building documents, speeches, torn down, forgotten.
But their role in the founding of our country or in the United Farmworkers movement isn't erased by the other things they did. I want to remember the good things, the noble ideals, the creativity, the good they did, while facing the awful parts too.

Some people and groups were more sinned against than I was though, had to deal with more pain and trauma, so I think that hard conversations and arguments will be needed to come to some kind of mutual reckoning and decision. Not sure what, but seems to me the whole story needs to be brought into the light. Too much was hidden and buried too long.