WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she is ordering the removal from the Capitol of portraits honoring four previous House speakers who served in the Confederacy. In a letter Thursday to the House clerk, Pelosi directed the immediate removal of portraits depicting former speakers. They are Robert Hunter of Virginia, James Orr of South Carolina and Howell Cobb and Charles Crisp, both of Georgia. Pelosi says that “there is no room in the hallowed halls of Congress or in any place of honor for memorializing men who embody the violent bigotry and grotesque racism of the Confederacy.”
