Confederate statues went up in the early 20th century, and we know explicitly that the goal was to terrorize the Black population and show who was in charge.

The finding

What the evidence shows

The timing is right. Most Confederate monuments went up from the 1890s through the 1920s, as Jim Crow laws spread. The American Historical Association says those memorials were meant "in part" to intimidate Black Americans and hide the terrorism used to end Reconstruction. So "we know explicitly" overstates it. Historians describe mixed motives, including Lost Cause commemoration and mourning, and a few historians dispute the intimidation reading. A check that would flip this verdict is finding that the main historians' bodies reject intimidation as a purpose, or that builders' own records show it was never a goal.