The removals were driven by the belief that the monuments glorify white supremacy and memorialize a government whose founding principle was the perpetuation and expansion of slavery.[4][5][6][7][8] Many of those who object to the removals claim that the artifacts are part of the cultural heritage of the United States.[citation needed] Historically, the vast majority of these Confederate monuments were built during the Jim Crow Era and Civil Rights Movement as a means of intimidating African Americans.[9][10] The monuments have thus become highly politicised; according to Eleanor Harvey, a senior curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and a scholar of Civil War history: "If white nationalists and neo-Nazis are now claiming this as part of their heritage, they have essentially co-opted those images and those statues beyond any capacity to neutralize them again".[4] The removal of some Confederate monuments has lead to calls to remove monuments to non-Confederate historical figures.
Number of Confederate monuments, schools and other iconography established by year. Most of these were put up either during the Jim Crow era or during the Civil Rights movement, times of increased racial tension.[11] The year 1911 saw the largest number constructed, which was the 50th anniversary of the Civil War.
Many of the Confederate monuments concerned were built in periods of racial conflict, such as when Jim Crow laws were being introduced in the late 19th century and at the start of the 20th century or during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.[a][b] These two periods also coincided with the 50th anniversary and the American Civil War Centennial.[13] The peak in construction of Civil War Monuments occurred between the late 1890s up to 1920, with a second, smaller peak in the late 1950s to mid 1960s.[14]
Adam Goodheart, Civil War author and director of the Starr Center at Washington College, stated in National Geographic: "They’re 20th-century artifacts in the sense that a lot of it had to do with a vision of national unity that embraced Southerners as well as Northerners, but importantly still excluded black people."[4]
History of removals
The removals were marked by events in Louisiana and Virginia within the span of two years. In Louisiana, after the Charleston church shooting of 2015, the city of New Orleans removed its Confederate memorials two years later.[15] A few months later, in August 2017, a state of emergency was declared in Virginia after a Unite the Right rally against the removal of the Robert Edward Lee statue in Charlottesville turned violent.[16]
Other events followed across the United States. In Baltimore, for example, the city's Confederate statues were removed on the night of August 15–16, 2017. Mayor Catherine Pugh said that she ordered the overnight removals to preserve public safety.[17][18] Similarly, in Lexington, Kentucky, Mayor Jim Gray asked the city council on August 16, 2017 to approve the relocation of two statues from a courthouse.[19][20] A different event occurred in Durham, North Carolina, where several protesters toppled the Confederate Soldiers Monument outside the Old Durham County Courthouse on August 15, 2017. Eight activists were arrested in connection with the illegal action.[21]
Laws prohibiting removals
In Alabama (2017), Mississippi (2004), North Carolina (2015), South Carolina (2000), and Virginia (1902), state laws prohibit the removal or alteration of monuments. Attempts to repeal these laws have not yet (2017) been successful. Alabama's law, the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act, was passed in May 2017, North Carolina's law in 2015.[22]
The removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina capitol required a 2/3 vote of both houses of the legislature.[23]
In August 2017, immediately after William A. Bell, the mayor of Birmingham, draped a Confederate memorial with plastic and surrounded it with plywood with the rationale "This country should in no way tolerate the hate that the KKK [ Ku Klux Klan ], neo-Nazis, fascists and other hate groups spew", Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall sued Bell and the city for violating a new (2017) state law that prohibits the "relocation, removal, alteration, or other disturbance of any monument on public property that has been in place for 40 years or more".[24]
Confederate Park. Renamed "Confederate Park" in 1923 at the request of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. A Confederate soldier statue was erected in 1910 at the intersection of North Main Avenue and West Capital Street adjacent to the Park. It was destroyed on July 16, 2016, when a policeman accidentally crashed his patrol car into the monument. The statue fell from its pedestal and was heavily damaged. In 2017, Demopolis city government voted 3–2 to move the damaged Confederate statue to a local museum and to install a new obelisk memorial that honors both the Union and the Confederate soldiers.[25][26]
In 2017, Washington National Cathedral removed stained glass windows honoring Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. In 2016, it had removed the small Confederate flags in those windows.[34]
On August 22, 2017, the Manatee County Commission voted 4-3 to move the Confederate monument in front of the county courthouse to storage.[35] Removed on August 24, 2017. Statue broke while being removed by workers.[36]
Confederate monument called "Old Joe", Alachua County courthouse lawn, unveiled January 20, 1904.[38] Removed from government land to a private cemetery in 2017, with participation of the Daughters of the Confederacy.[39]
Confederate "Johnny Reb" monument, Lake Eola Park. Erected in 1911 on Magnolia Avenue; moved to Lake Eola Park in 1917. Removed from the park to a private location in 2017.[40][40]
In 1997, county commissioners removed the Confederate flag from the Hillsborough County seal. In a compromise, they voted to hang a version of the flag in the county center. Commissioners voted in 2015 to remove that flag. In 2007 the county stopped honoring Confederate History Month.
In June 2017, the Hillsborough County School Board started a review of how to change the name of Robert E. Lee Elementary School in east Tampa.[43]
The Hillsborough County Board of Commissioners in July 2017, voted to remove the Memoria in Aeterna (Eternal Memory) monument, erected in 1911 at Franklin and Lafayette Streets and moved to its current location, in front of the then-new county courthouse, in 1952.
Flag of the Confederacy removed from Senate seal, displayed in its chambers and on the Senate letterhead. Decided to remove August 19, 2015,[44] new shield in place 2016.[45]
Confederate monument, Woodlawn Cemetery (1941). "The only one south of St. Augustine, likely the only Confederate statue in Palm Beach and Broward counties, said historian Janet DeVries, who leads cemetery tours at Woodlawn." Vandalized several times. Removed August 22, 2017. Placed in storage, since its owner, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, had not claimed it despite notification.[46] "Believed by local historians to be the last Confederate monument in Palm Beach County."[47][48]
Confederate Flag Bicentennial Memorial (1962, removed 2015). The Confederate battle flag had been displayed at the John S. Stevens Pavilion at Veterans Memorial Plaza near downtown since 1976, when it was placed there in a historical flag display as part of the nation’s bicentennial. The flag was removed July 2, 2015 by order of Mayor Jeff Longwell.[50]
Lexington Mayor Jim Gray proposed the removal of two public statues commemorating John Hunt Morgan and John C. Breckenridge. The city council approved the removal on August 17, 2017, giving the mayor 30 days to determine a new location.[52]
Statue of Chief Justice of the United StatesRoger Taney, Maryland State House grounds (1872). Taney stayed loyal to the Union, and remained Chief Justice until his death in 1864. However, he was the author of the pro-slavery Dred Scott decision, leading up to the Civil War. Monuments to him are being removed at the same time, and for the same reasons, as Confederate monuments. Removed August 18, 2017.[55]
Confederate Monument. The monument was removed in July 2017 from its original location outside the Rockville Court House to private land. The monument was installed and/or dedicated on January 1, 1913.[59]
On August 16, 2017, the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island removed a 1912 plaque from a tree Robert E. Lee planted between 1842 and 1847. They also removed a second marker erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1935.[64]
From 1910 to 2011, the monument stood in Reidsville's downtown area. In 2011, a motorist hit the monument, shattering the granite soldier which stood atop it. Placing the monument back in the center of town sparked a debate between local officials, neighbors and friends—which resulted in it being placed at its current site—the Greenview Cemetery.[65]
The Old Durham County Courthouse statue was pulled down by protesters, later arrested, on August 14, 2017.[67] It is being stored in a county warehouse.[68]
The statue on top was toppled and decapitated by vandals on August 22, 2017.[71][72] A federal agency plans to repair the bronze statue.[73]
Worthington: An Ohio state historical marker outside the home where CSA Brigadier General Roswell S. Ripley was born was removed August 18, 2017.[74]
South Carolina
The Confederate flag was raised over the South Carolina statehouse in 1962. In 2000 the legislature voted to remove it and replace it with a flag on a flagpole in front of the Capitol.[75] In 2015 the complete removal was approved by the required 2/3 majority of both houses of the Legislature.[76]
In 2017, the Confederate flag and pictures of Jackson and Lee were removed from the York County courthouse.[77]
Confederate Memorial Hall, Vanderbilt University, was renamed Memorial Hall on August 15, 2016. Since the building "was built on the back of a $50,000 donation from the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1933," the University returned to them its 2017 equivalent, $1.2 million.[79]
In March 2015, the University of Texas student body government resolved to move a statue of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy during the Civil War, which stood on a pedestal next to the campus Clock Tower. The statue was removed on August 30, 2015, after an unsuccessful legal attempt to prevent it by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. It was moved to the Briscoe Center for American History.[80]
The Robert E. Lee Statue (1936) formerly located in Lee Park along Turtle Creek Boulevard was set to be removed on September 6, 2017, after the city council voted 13-1 to remove it. After a brief legal challenge, it was removed on September 14, 2017.[84][85][86]
On September 1, 2017 the Confederate statue at Travis Park next to the Alamo was taken down after a 10-1 city council vote the night before to immediately take down the statue. It was dedicated in 1900.[87]
Lee Park, the setting for an equestrian statue of Robert Edward Lee, was renamed Emancipation Park on February 6, 2017.
On February 6, the Charlottesville City Council also voted to remove the equestrian statue of Lee. In April, the City Council voted to sell the statue. In May a six-month court injunction staying the removal was issued as a result of legal action by the Sons of Confederate Veterans and others. In June 2016 the pedestal had been spray painted with the words "Black Lives Matter",[88] and overnight between July 7 and 8, 2017, it was vandalized by being daubed in red paint.[89] On August 20, 2017, the City Council unanimously voted to shroud the statue, and that of Stonewall Jackson, in black. The Council "also decided to direct the city manager to take an administrative step that would make it easier to eventually remove the Jackson statue."[90] The statues were covered in black shrouds on August 23, 2017.[91]
On September 6, 2017, the city council voted to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson from Emancipation Park.[92]
Jackson Park, named for Stonewall Jackson, was renamed Justice Park.[93]
The University of Virginia Board of Visitors (trustees) voted unanimously to remove two plaques from the university’s Rotunda that honored students and alumni who fought and died for the Confederacy in the Civil War. The University also agreed "to acknowledge a $1,000 gift in 1921 from the Ku Klux Klan and contribute the amount, adjusted for inflation, to a suitable cause."[94]
Confederate Rest section of Forest Hill Cemetery. This section of the cemetery contains the remains of more than 100 Confederate soldiers who died as prisoners of war at nearby Camp Randall.
In 2015, a flag pole was removed from the section. The pole had been used to fly the Confederate flag for one week around Memorial Day.[98][99]
On August 17, 2017, a plaque dedicated to the buried confederate soldiers was removed on the order of Madison mayor Paul Soglin. A larger stone monument listing the names of the deceased was also ordered to be removed, but the removal was postponed until logistics could be worked out.[100][101][98]
According to historian Adam Goodheart, the statues were meant to be symbols of white supremacy and the rallying around them by white supremacists will likely hasten their demise.[104]Elijah Anderson, a professor of sociology at Yale University, said the statues "really impacts the psyche of black people."[105]Harold Holzer, the director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, agreed that the statues were designed to belittle African Americans.[106]
Eric Foner, a historian of the Civil War and biographer of Lincoln, argued that more statues of African-Americans like Nat Turner should be constructed.[105]Alfred Brophy, a professor of law at the University of Alabama, argued the removal of the Confederate statues "facilitates forgetting", although these statues were "re-inscribed images of white supremacy". Brophy also stated that the Lee statue in Charlottesville should be removed.[105]
^Graham (2016) "Many of the treasured monuments that seem to offer a connection to the post-bellum South are actually much later, anachronistic constructions, and they tend to correlate closely with periods of fraught racial relations".[12]
^Graham (2016) "A timeline of the genesis of the Confederate sites shows two notable spikes. One comes around the turn of the 20th century, just after Plessy v. Ferguson, and just as many Southern states were establishing repressive race laws. The second runs from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s—the peak of the civil-rights movement."[4][12]
^"Whose Heritage? Public Symbols of the Confederacy". Southern Poverty Law Center. April 21, 2016. Retrieved September 15, 2017. The second spike began in the early 1950s and lasted through the 1960s, as the civil rights movement led to a backlash among segregationists. These two periods also coincided with the 50th and 100th anniversaries of the Civil War
^Holland, Jesse J. (August 15, 2017). "Deadly rally accelerates ongoing removal of Confederate statues across U.S.". The Chicago Tribune. ((cite web)): Cite has empty unknown parameter: |urlhttp://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-confederate-statue-removal-20170815-story.html= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help)
^Harvey, Steve (May 29, 2010). "Southern California does indeed have a Civil War history". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 11, 2017. So will Hollywood Forever Cemetery, where the Long Beach chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy maintains a Confederate monument.
^[University of North Carolina], The Carolina Story: A Virtual Museum of the University History, "William L. Saunders (1835-1891) and Carolina Hall," https://museum.unc.edu/exhibits/show/names/carolina-hall, retrieved Aug. 25, 2017
^"Theatre in Memphis pulls 'racially insensitive' Gone With the Wind. Orpheum Theatre ditches 34-year-old tradition of screening classic film after customers complained". The Guardian. August 28, 2017.
^Shapiro, T. Rees (July 8, 2014). "Washington and Lee University to remove Confederate flags following protests". Washington Post. ((cite news)): |access-date= requires |url= (help)
