More than 100 monuments and memorials to the
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States or the Confederacy was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confeder ...
(CSA; the Confederacy) and associated figures have been removed, all but five since 2015.
Some have been removed by state and local governments; others have been torn down by protestors.
More than 700 such monuments and memorials have been erected on public land in the United States, the vast majority in the
South
South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...
during the era of
Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...
from 1877 to 1964.
Efforts to remove them increased after the
Charleston church shooting
On June 17, 2015, a mass shooting occurred in Charleston, South Carolina, in which nine African Americans were killed during a Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Among those people who were killed was the senior past ...
(2015), the
Unite the Right rally
The Unite the Right rally was a white supremacist rally that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, from August 11 to 12, 2017. Marchers included members of the alt-right, neo-Confederates, neo-fascists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, ...
(2017), the
murder of George Floyd
On , George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered in the U.S. city of Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. Floyd had been arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin knelt on Floyd's n ...
(2020), and other incidents.
Proponents of their removal cite historical analysis that the monuments were not built as memorials, but to intimidate
African Americans
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
and reaffirm
white supremacy
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White su ...
after the
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
;
[Confederate Monuments and Civic Values in the Wake of Charlottesville](_blank)
Dell Upton
Dell Thayer Upton (born Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, 1949) is an architectural historian. He is emeritus professor at the department of art history at University of California, Los Angeles, and Professor Emeritus of Architecture at the University o ...
, Society of American Historians
The Society of American Historians, founded in 1939, encourages and honors literary distinction in the writing of history and biography about American topics. The approximately 300 members include professional historians, independent scholars, jou ...
, September 13, 2017 and that they memorialize an unrecognized,
treasonous
Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...
[The Law of Treason](_blank)
''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', April 21, 1861[Top US General Slams Confederacy As ‘Treason’, Signals Support For Base Renaming](_blank)
DefenseOne, July 9, 2020 government, the Confederacy, whose
founding principle was the perpetuation and expansion of
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
. They also argue that the presence of these memorials more than a hundred years after the defeat of the Confederacy continues to disenfranchise and alienate
African Americans
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
.
Opponents view removing the monuments as "erasing history" or a sign of disrespect for "heritage";
white nationalist
White nationalism is a type of racial nationalism or pan-nationalism which espouses the belief that white people are a raceHeidi Beirich and Kevin Hicks. "Chapter 7: White nationalism in America". In Perry, Barbara. ''Hate Crimes''. Greenwoo ...
s and
neo-Nazi
Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazism, Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and Supremacism#Racial, racial supremacy (ofte ...
s in particular have mounted
protests
A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration or remonstrance) is a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent towards an idea or action, typically a political one.
Protests can be thought of as acts of coopera ...
and opposition to the removals. Some Southern states passed
state law State law refers to the law of a federated state, as distinguished from the law of the federation of which it is a part. It is used when the constituent components of a federation are themselves called states. Federations made up of provinces, cant ...
s restricting or prohibiting the removal or alteration of public monuments.
By the ''Washington Post's'' count, five Confederate monuments were removed between 1865 and 2014, eight in the two years after the 2015 Charleston church shooting, 48 in the three years after the 2017 Unite the Right rally, and 110 in the two years after Floyd's 2020 murder.
Since then, the
U.S. Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...
said it would rename
Fort Bragg
Fort Bragg is a military installation of the United States Army in North Carolina, and is one of the largest military installations in the world by population, with around 54,000 military personnel. The military reservation is located within Cum ...
and its other military bases named for Confederate generals. The
U.S. Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of ...
and
U.S. Marines
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the Marines, maritime land force military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary warfare, exped ...
prohibited the
display
Display may refer to:
Technology
* Display device, output device for presenting information, including:
** Cathode ray tube, video display that provides a quality picture, but can be very heavy and deep
** Electronic visual display, output devi ...
of the
Confederate flag
The flags of the Confederate States of America have a history of three successive designs during the American Civil War. The flags were known as the "Stars and Bars", used from 1861 to 1863; the "Stainless Banner", used from 1863 to 1865; and ...
, including as bumper stickers on private cars on base; a wave of corporate product re-branding has also ensued. The campaign to remove monuments extended beyond the United States; numerous statues and other public works of art related to the
transatlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...
and
European colonialism
The historical phenomenon of colonization is one that stretches around the globe and across time. Ancient and medieval colonialism was practiced by the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Turkish people, Turks, and the Arabs.
Colonialism in the mode ...
around the world have been removed or destroyed.
Background
![Robert E Lee statue removed from column New Orleans 19 May 2017 12](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Robert_E_Lee_statue_removed_from_column_New_Orleans_19_May_2017_12.jpg)
Most of the Confederate monuments concerned were built in periods of racial conflict, such as when
Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...
were being introduced in the late 19th century and at the start of the 20th century or during the
Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
of the 1950s and 1960s. These two periods also coincided with the 50th anniversary and the
American Civil War Centennial
The American Civil War Centennial was the official United States commemoration of the American Civil War, also known as the ''War Between the States''. Commemoration activities began in 1957, four years prior to the 100th anniversary of the comm ...
.
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.
According to historian Jane Dailey from
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
, in many cases the purpose of the monuments was not to celebrate the past but rather to promote a "
white supremacist
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other Race (human classification), races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any Power (social and polit ...
future". Another historian, Karyn Cox, from the
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNC Charlotte or simply Charlotte) is a public research university in Charlotte, North Carolina. UNC Charlotte offers 24 doctoral, 66 master's, and 79 bachelor's degree programs through nine colle ...
, has written that the monuments are "a legacy of the brutally racist Jim Crow era". A historian from the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...
, James Leloudis, stated that "The funders and backers of these monuments are very explicit that they are requiring a political education and a legitimacy for the Jim Crow era and the right of white men to rule."
Adam Goodheart, Civil War author and director of the Starr Center at
Washington College
Washington College is a private liberal arts college in Chestertown, Maryland. Maryland granted Washington College its charter in 1782. George Washington supported the founding of the college by consenting to have the "College at Chester" name ...
, stated in ''
National Geographic
''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely ...
'': "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."
Academic commentary
In an August 2017 statement on the monuments controversy, the
American Historical Association
The American Historical Association (AHA) is the oldest professional association of historians in the United States and the largest such organization in the world. Founded in 1884, the AHA works to protect academic freedom, develop professional s ...
(AHA) said that to remove a monument "is not to erase history, but rather to alter or call attention to a previous interpretation of history." The AHA stated that most monuments were erected "without anything resembling a democratic process", and recommended that it was "time to reconsider these decisions." According to the AHA, most Confederate monuments were erected during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, and this undertaking was "part and parcel of the initiation of legally mandated segregation and widespread disenfranchisement across the South." According to the AHA, memorials to the Confederacy erected during this period "were intended, in part, to obscure the terrorism required to overthrow Reconstruction, and to intimidate African Americans politically and isolate them from the mainstream of public life." A later wave of monument building coincided with the civil rights movement, and according to the AHA "these symbols of white supremacy are still being invoked for similar purposes."
Michael J. McAfee, curator of history at the West Point Museum, said "There are no monuments that mention the name Benedict Arnold. What does this have to do with the Southern monuments honoring the political and military leaders of the Confederacy? They, like Arnold, were traitors. They turned their backs on their nation, their oaths, and the sacrifices of their ancestors in the War for Independence. ... They attempted to destroy their nation to defend chattel slavery and from a sense that as white men they were innately superior to all other races. They fought for white racial supremacy. That is why monuments glorifying them and their cause should be removed. Leave monuments marking their participation on the battlefields of the war, but tear down those that only commemorate the intolerance, violence, and hate that inspired their attempt to destroy the American nation."
According to historian
Adam Goodheart
Adam K. Goodheart is an American historian, essayist and author. He is known for his book on the social history of the early days of the American Civil War: ''1861: The Civil War Awakening'', and for his essays in publications such as ''The Atlan ...
, the statues were meant to be symbols of white supremacy and the rallying around them by white supremacists will likely hasten their demise.
Elijah Anderson Elijah Anderson may refer to:
* Elijah Anderson (rugby league) (born 1999), Australian rugby league footballer
*Elijah Anderson (sociologist)
Elijah Anderson (born 1943 in Hermondale, Missouri) is an American sociologist. He is the Sterling Pr ...
, a professor of sociology at
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
, said the statues "really impacts the psyche of black people."
Harold Holzer
Harold Holzer (born February 5, 1949) is a scholar of Abraham Lincoln and the political culture of the American Civil War Era. He serves as director of Hunter College's Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute. Holzer previously spent twenty-thr ...
, the director of the
Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, agreed that the statues were designed to belittle African Americans.
Dell Upton
Dell Thayer Upton (born Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, 1949) is an architectural historian. He is emeritus professor at the department of art history at University of California, Los Angeles, and Professor Emeritus of Architecture at the University o ...
, chair of the Department of Art History at the
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
, wrote that "the monuments were not intended as public art", but rather were installed "as affirmations that the American polity was a white polity", and that because of their explicitly white supremacist intent, their removal from civic spaces was a matter "of justice, equity, and civic values."
[ In a 1993 book on the issue in Georgia, author Frank McKenney argued otherwise; "These monuments were communal efforts, public art, and social history", he wrote. Ex-soldiers and politicians had difficult time raising funds to erect monuments so the task mostly fell to the women, the "mothers widows, and orphans, the bereaved fiancees and sisters" of the soldiers who had lost their lives. Many ladies' memorial associations were formed in the decades following the end of the Civil War, most of them joining the ]United Daughters of the Confederacy
The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is an American neo-Confederate hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers engaging in the commemoration of these ancestors, the funding of monuments to them, ...
following its inception in 1894. The women were advised to "remember that they were buying art, not metal and stone;" The history the monuments celebrated told only one side of the story, however—one that was "openly pro-Confederate", Upton argues. Furthermore, Confederate monuments were erected without the consent or even input of Southern African-Americans, who remembered the Civil War far differently, and who had no interest in honoring those who fought to keep them enslaved.[ According to Civil War historian Judith Giesberg, professor of history at ]Villanova University
Villanova University is a Private university, private Catholic church, Roman Catholic research university in Villanova, Pennsylvania. It was founded by the Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinians in 1842 and named after Thomas of Villanova, Sa ...
, "White supremacy is really what these statues represent."[Confederate monuments: What to do with them?]
Grier, Peter. ''Christian Science Monitor
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...
, August 22, 2017
Robert Seigler, in his study of Confederate monuments in South Carolina, found that out of the over one hundred and seventy that he documented, only five monuments were found dedicated to the African Americans who had been used by the Confederacy working "on fortifications, and had served as musicians, teamsters, cooks, servants, and in other capacities." Four of those were to slaves and one to a musician, Henry Brown.
Eleanor Harvey, a senior curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...
and a scholar of Civil War history, said: "If white nationalist
White nationalism is a type of racial nationalism or pan-nationalism which espouses the belief that white people are a raceHeidi Beirich and Kevin Hicks. "Chapter 7: White nationalism in America". In Perry, Barbara. ''Hate Crimes''. Greenwoo ...
s and neo-Nazi
Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazism, Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and Supremacism#Racial, racial supremacy (ofte ...
s 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".
Cheryl Benard, president of the Alliance for the Restoration of Cultural Heritage, argued against the removal of Confederate war monuments in an op-ed written for ''The National Interest
''The National Interest'' (''TNI'') is an American bimonthly international relations magazine edited by American journalist Jacob Heilbrunn and published by the Center for the National Interest, a public policy think tank based in Washington, D ...
'': "From my vantage point, the idea that the way to deal with history is to destroy any relics that remind you of something you don't like, is highly alarming."
Eric Foner
Eric Foner (; born February 7, 1943) is an American historian. He writes extensively on American political history, the history of freedom, the early history of the Republican Party, African-American biography, the American Civil War, Reconstru ...
, a historian of the Civil War and biographer of Lincoln
Lincoln most commonly refers to:
* Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States
* Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England
* Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S.
* Lincoln ...
, argued that more statues of African Americans like Nat Turner
Nat Turner's Rebellion, historically known as the Southampton Insurrection, was a rebellion of enslaved Virginians that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831.Schwarz, Frederic D.1831 Nat Turner's Rebellion" ''American Heri ...
should be erected. 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.
Civil War historian James I. Robertson Jr. said that the monuments were not a "Jim Crow signal of defiance". He called the current climate to dismantle or destroy Confederate monuments as an "age of idiocy", motivated by "elements hell-bent on tearing apart unity that generations of Americans have painfully constructed". However, Civil War historian David Blight
David William Blight (born 1949) is the Sterling Professor of History, of African American Studies, and of American Studies and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. Previous ...
asked: "Why, in the year 016 should communal spaces in the South continue to be sullied by tributes to those who defended slavery? How can Americans ignore the pain that black citizens, especially, must feel when they walk by the ohn C.Calhoun monument, or any similar statues, on their way to work, school or Bible study?"
Julian Hayter, a historian at the University of Richmond, supports a different approach for the statues: re-contextualization. He supports adding a "footnote of epic proportions" such as a prominent historical sign or marker that explains the context in which they were built to help people see old monuments in a new light. "I'm suggesting we use the scale and grandeur of those monuments against themselves. I think we lack imagination when we talk about memorials. It's all or nothin'.... As if there's nothin' in between that we could do to tell a more enriching story about American history.
History
The removals were marked by events in Louisiana and Virginia within the span of two years. In Louisiana, after the Charleston church shooting
On June 17, 2015, a mass shooting occurred in Charleston, South Carolina, in which nine African Americans were killed during a Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Among those people who were killed was the senior past ...
of 2015, the city of New Orleans removed its Confederate memorials two years later. A few months later, in August 2017, a state of emergency was declared in Virginia after a Unite the Right rally
The Unite the Right rally was a white supremacist rally that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, from August 11 to 12, 2017. Marchers included members of the alt-right, neo-Confederates, neo-fascists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, ...
against the removal of the Robert Edward Lee statue in Charlottesville
Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Queen Cha ...
turned violent.
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
Catherine Elizabeth Pugh (born March 10, 1950) is an American former politician. A member of the Democratic Party, she served as the 51st mayor of Baltimore from 2016 to 2019, when she resigned amid a scandal that eventually led to criminal charg ...
said that she ordered the overnight removals to preserve public safety. Similarly, in Lexington, Kentucky
Lexington is a city in Kentucky, United States that is the county seat of Fayette County, Kentucky, Fayette County. By population, it is the List of cities in Kentucky, second-largest city in Kentucky and List of United States cities by popul ...
, Mayor Jim Gray asked the city council on August 16, 2017, to approve the removal of two statues from a courthouse.
Within three years of the Charleston shooting, Texas removed 31 memorials, more than any other state. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is known for its legal cases against white su ...
, at least 114 Confederate monuments were removed from public spaces during the same period.[
According to an April 2020 study, Confederate monuments are more likely to be removed in localities that have a large black and Democratic population, a chapter of the NAACP, and Southern state legislatures that have the power to decree removal.
]
Proponents
* The Make It Right Project was founded in 2018 to encourage removal of Confederate monuments.
* Protesters in the movement protesting the murder of George Floyd tore down the statue of Jefferson Davis
Jefferson F. Davis (June 3, 1808December 6, 1889) was an American politician who served as the president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as a ...
on Monument Avenue
Monument Avenue is a tree-lined grassy mall dividing the eastbound and westbound traffic in Richmond, Virginia, originally named for its emblematic complex of structures honoring those who fought for the Confederacy during the American Civil War. ...
in Richmond, Virginia
(Thus do we reach the stars)
, image_map =
, mapsize = 250 px
, map_caption = Location within Virginia
, pushpin_map = Virginia#USA
, pushpin_label = Richmond
, pushpin_m ...
.
* The "Second Annual International Take 'Em Down" conference was scheduled for March 22–24, 2019, in Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the seat of Duval County, with which the ...
. It was "designed to commemorate, celebrate and strategically align Take 'Em Down efforts." The first conference was held March 22–24, 2018, in New Orleans.
* Southern Poverty Law Center
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal advocacy organization specializing in civil rights and public interest litigation. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, it is known for its legal cases against white su ...
published an extensive report in 2016 of Confederate memorials in public spaces and keeps an up-to-date list online.
Legal impediments
Seven states have passed laws that ban or impede the removal or alteration of public Confederate monuments. Alabama (2017), Georgia (early 20th century), and North Carolina (2015) prohibit altogether such removal or alteration; while Mississippi (2004), South Carolina (2000), Tennessee (2013, updated 2016), and Virginia (1902, repealed 2020) merely impede such actions.
Attempts to repeal these laws have not been successful, except in Virginia.
Tennessee law
In 2016, Tennessee passed its Tennessee Heritage Protection Act The Tennessee Heritage Protection Act (THPA) was enacted in 2013, and amended in 2016 and 2018. It prohibits the removal, relocation, or renaming of a memorial that is, or is located on, public property without permission (a waiver). Permission requ ...
, which requires a two-thirds majority of the Tennessee Historical Commission
The Tennessee Historical Commission (THC) is the State Historic Preservation Office for the U.S. state of Tennessee. Headquartered in Nashville, it is an independent state agency, administratively attached to the Department of Environment and Con ...
to rename, remove, or move any public statue, monument, or memorial. A 2018 amendment passed in response to events in Memphis (see below) prohibits municipalities from selling or transferring ownership of memorials without a waiver, and "allows any entity, group or individual with an interest in a Confederate memorial to seek an injunction to preserve the memorial in question." ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' wrote in 2018 that the Tennessee act shows "an express intent to prevent municipalities in Tennessee from taking down Confederate memorials."
As of 2022, the Tennessee Historical Commission has considered seven petitions to remove a Confederate monument and approved just one: for the Forrest bust in the state capitol.
South Carolina law
The removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina capitol required a two-thirds vote of both houses of the legislature, as would the removal of any other Confederate monument in South Carolina.
North Carolina law
A state law, the Cultural History Artifact Management and Patriotism Act of 2015, prevents local governments from removing monuments on public property, and places limits on their movement within the property. In 2017 Governor Roy Cooper
Roy Asberry Cooper III (born June 13, 1957) is an American attorney and politician, serving as the 75th governor of North Carolina since 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 49th attorney general of North Carolina from 20 ...
asked the North Carolina Legislature to repeal the law, saying: "I don't pretend to know what it's like for a person of color to pass by one of these monuments and consider that those memorialized in stone and metal did not value my freedom or humanity. Unlike an African-American father, I'll never have to explain to my daughters why there exists an exalted monument for those who wished to keep her and her ancestors in chains." "We cannot continue to glorify a war against the United States of America fought in the defense of slavery", he wrote. "These monuments should come down."[ He also has asked the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources to "determine the cost and logistics of removing Confederate monuments from state property." Cooper later removed, on the grounds of public safety, three Confederate monuments at the North Carolina Capitol that the legislature had in effect made illegal to remove.
After the ]University of North Carolina
The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...
renamed Saunders Hall in 2014 (see below), its Board of Trustees prohibited further renamings for 16 years.
In 2019, North Carolina's law prohibiting monument removal was challenged indirectly. The Confederate Soldiers Monument in Winston-Salem
Winston-Salem is a city and the county seat of Forsyth County, North Carolina, United States. In the 2020 census, the population was 249,545, making it the second-largest municipality in the Piedmont Triad region, the 5th most populous city in N ...
was removed as a public nuisance
In English criminal law, public nuisance was a common law offence in which the injury, loss, or damage is suffered by the public, in general, rather than an individual, in particular.
In Australia
In ''Kent v Johnson'' the Supreme Court of the ...
, and a similar monument in Pittsboro was removed after a court ruled that it had never become county property, so the statute did not apply.
Virginia law
On March 8, 2020, the Virginia legislature "passed measures that would undo an existing state law that protects the monuments and instead let local governments decide their fate." On April 11, 2020, Governor Ralph Northam
Ralph (pronounced ; or ,) is a male given name of English, Scottish and Irish origin, derived from the Old English ''Rædwulf'' and Radulf, cognate with the Old Norse ''Raðulfr'' (''rað'' "counsel" and ''ulfr'' "wolf").
The most common forms ...
signed the bill into law, which went into effect on July 1. Previously, the state law had prohibited local governments from taking the monuments down, moving them, or even adding placards explaining why they were erected.
Alabama law
Alabama's law, the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act, was passed in May 2017. On January 14, 2019, a circuit judge ruled that the law is an un-Constitutional infringement on the City of Birmingham's right to free speech, and cannot be enforced. On November 27, 2019, the Alabama Supreme Court reversed that ruling by a vote of nine to zero. In their decision, the court stated that "a municipality has no individual, substantive constitutional rights and that the trial court erred by holding that the City has constitutional rights to free speech."
Unsuccessful federal legislation
On July 22, 2020, in the midst of the George Floyd protests
The George Floyd protests were a series of protests and civil unrest against police brutality and racism that began in Minneapolis on May 26, 2020, and largely took place during 2020. The civil unrest and protests began as part of internati ...
, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 305-113 to remove a bust of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney
Roger Brooke Taney (; March 17, 1777 – October 12, 1864) was the fifth chief justice of the United States, holding that office from 1836 until his death in 1864. Although an opponent of slavery, believing it to be an evil practice, Taney belie ...
(as well as statues honoring figures who were part of the Confederacy during the Civil War) from the U.S. Capitol and replace it with a bust of Justice Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1967 until 1991. He was the Supreme Court's first African-A ...
. The bill called for removal of Taney's bust within 30 days after the law's passage. The bust had been mounted in the old robing room adjacent to the Old Supreme Court Chamber
The Old Supreme Court Chamber is the room on the ground floor of the North Wing of the United States Capitol. From 1800 to 1806, the room was the lower half of the first United States Senate chamber, and from 1810 to 1860, the courtroom for the Su ...
in the Capitol Building. The bill (H.R. 7573) also created a "process to obtain a bust of Marshall ... and place it there within a minimum of two years." After the bill reached the Republican-led Senate on July 30, 2020 (S.4382) it was referred to the Committee on Rules and Administration, but no further action on it was taken.
Protesters
In North Carolina and Georgia, where removal is completely prohibited, protesters toppled three Confederate monuments:
* The Confederate Soldiers Monument in Durham, North Carolina
Durham ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Durham County, North Carolina, Durham County. Small portions of the city limits extend into Orange County, North Carolina, Orange County and Wake County, North Carol ...
.
* ''Silent Sam
The Confederate Monument, University of North Carolina, commonly known as ''Silent Sam'', is a bronze statue of a Confederate soldier by Canadian sculptor John A. Wilson, which once stood on McCorkle Place of the University of North Carolin ...
'', in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Chapel Hill is a town in Orange, Durham and Chatham counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Its population was 61,960 in the 2020 census, making Chapel Hill the 17th-largest municipality in the state. Chapel Hill, Durham, and the state ca ...
.
* The Screven County
Screven County is a county located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 14,067. The county seat is Sylvania.
History
The county was created on December 14, 1793, and was named for G ...
Confederate Dead Monument, in Sylvania, Georgia
Sylvania is a town in and the county seat of Screven County, Georgia, United States. The population was 2,956 at the 2010 census.
History
The area was inhabited for thousands of years by various cultures of indigenous peoples. By the time of Euro ...
.
Of these, the first and third were damaged to the point that they cannot be repaired. ''Silent Sam'', which was not seriously damaged, is in storage as of June 2020, awaiting a political decision about what to do with it. The "Confederate Dead Monument" was then replaced through funds raised by the Sons of Confederate Veterans
The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) is an American neo-Confederate nonprofit organization of male descendants of Confederate soldiers
The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the militar ...
and the United Daughters of the Confederacy
The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is an American neo-Confederate hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers engaging in the commemoration of these ancestors, the funding of monuments to them, ...
.
In addition, the bust of Robert E. Lee in Fort Myers, Florida
Fort Myers (or Ft. Myers) is a city in southwestern Florida and the county seat and commercial center of Lee County, Florida, United States. The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that the city's population was 92,245 in 20 ...
, was toppled by unknown parties during the night of March 11–12, 2019.
More details and citations are under each monument, below.
Threats of violence
Removal of Confederate monuments in Maryland and New Orleans took place in the middle of the night, with police protection and workers wearing bullet-proof vests, because of concerns about possible violence. In the case of New Orleans, a crane had to be brought in from an unidentified out-of-state company as no local company wanted the business; one local company had a vehicle set ablaze and sand poured in the gas tank of another. (See below
Below may refer to:
*Earth
*Ground (disambiguation)
*Soil
*Floor
*Bottom (disambiguation)
Bottom may refer to:
Anatomy and sex
* Bottom (BDSM), the partner in a BDSM who takes the passive, receiving, or obedient role, to that of the top or ...
.)
Jason Spencer
Jason Chauncey Spencer (born November 14, 1974) is an American physician assistant and Republican politician.
Spencer was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 2010, representing district 180, and serving into July 2018. He was def ...
, a white member of the Georgia legislature, told an African-American colleague that if she continued calling for removal of Confederate monuments, she wouldn't be "met with torches but something a lot more definitive", and that people who want the statues gone "will go missing in the Okefenokee.... Don't say I didn't warn you."
Public opinion
A 2017 Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency was estab ...
poll found that 54% of American adults stated that the monuments should remain in all public spaces, and 27% said they should be removed, while 19% said they were unsure. According to Reuters, "responses to the poll were sharply split along racial and party lines, however, with whites and Republicans largely supportive of preservation. Democrats and minorities were more likely to support removal." Another 2017 poll, by ''HuffPost
''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...
''/YouGov
YouGov is a British international Internet-based market research and data analytics firm, headquartered in the UK, with operations in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific. In 2007, it acquired US company Polimetrix, and sinc ...
, found that 48% of respondents favored the "remain" option, 33% favored removal, and 18% were unsure. An NPR
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
/''PBS NewsHour
''PBS NewsHour'' is an American evening television news program broadcast on over 350 PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virg ...
''/Marist Poll
The Marist Poll, founded in 1978, is a national public opinion poll operated by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion (MIPO) on the campus of Marist College in Poughkeepsie (town), New York, Poughkeepsie, New York. The poll was one of the first ...
released in 2017 found that most Americans, including 44% of African Americans, believe that statues honoring leaders of the Confederacy should remain in place.
Support for removal increased during the George Floyd protests
The George Floyd protests were a series of protests and civil unrest against police brutality and racism that began in Minneapolis on May 26, 2020, and largely took place during 2020. The civil unrest and protests began as part of internati ...
, with 52% in favor of removal, and 44% opposed.
Artistic treatment
Ben Hamburger, an artist based in North Carolina, has exhibited six paintings, as a group called ''Monuments''. They show monuments being taken down and hauled away: Silent Sam
The Confederate Monument, University of North Carolina, commonly known as ''Silent Sam'', is a bronze statue of a Confederate soldier by Canadian sculptor John A. Wilson, which once stood on McCorkle Place of the University of North Carolin ...
, the Confederate Soldiers Monument in Durham, North Carolina
Durham ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Durham County, North Carolina, Durham County. Small portions of the city limits extend into Orange County, North Carolina, Orange County and Wake County, North Carol ...
, the Confederate Women's Monument
The Confederate Women's Monument was an outdoor memorial by J. Maxwell Miller, installed in Baltimore, in the U.S. state of Maryland in 1917.
The statue was removed in August 2017. At the August 14, 2017, City Council session, they also voted u ...
in Baltimore, the Jefferson Davis Monument in New Orleans, and two others.
Vestigial pedestals
In the case of many monuments, after they are removed the pedestals or plinth
A pedestal (from French ''piédestal'', Italian ''piedistallo'' 'foot of a stall') or plinth is a support at the bottom of a statue, vase, column, or certain altars. Smaller pedestals, especially if round in shape, may be called socles. In c ...
s remain. What to do with them has been the subject of some discussion. In the case of the toppled ''Silent Sam
The Confederate Monument, University of North Carolina, commonly known as ''Silent Sam'', is a bronze statue of a Confederate soldier by Canadian sculptor John A. Wilson, which once stood on McCorkle Place of the University of North Carolin ...
'' monument at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...
, two scholars proposed leaving the "empty pedestal — shorn all original images and inscriptions — hich
Ij ( fa, ايج, also Romanized as Īj; also known as Hich and Īch) is a village in Golabar Rural District, in the Central District of Ijrud County, Zanjan Province, Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also ...
eliminates the offending tribute while still preserving a record of what these communities did and where they did it.... The most effective way to commemorate the rise and fall of white supremacist monument-building is to preserve unoccupied pedestals as the ruins that they are — broken tributes to a morally bankrupt cause."
In Baltimore, one of the four empty plinths was used in 2017, for a statue of a pregnant black woman, naked from the waist up, holding a baby in a brightly-covered sling on her back, with a raised golden fist: ''Madre Luz'' (''Mother Light''). The statue was first placed in front of the monument before its removal, then raised to the pedestal. According to the artist Pablo Machioli, "his original idea was to construct a pregnant mother as a symbol of life. 'I feel like people would understand and respect that'". The statue has been vandalized several times. According to a writer for ''Another Chicago Magazine'' discussing the removal of the Baltimore monuments, she is "defiant.... r imposing presence combines maternal nurturing with power. Madre Luz is Gaia
In Greek mythology, Gaia (; from Ancient Greek , a poetical form of , 'land' or 'earth'),, , . also spelled Gaea , is the personification of the Earth and one of the Greek primordial deities. Gaia is the ancestral mother—sometimes parthenog ...
, The Triple Goddess, and The Mother's Knot. She is the American Statue of Maternity. She is the African seed of the wawa tree. She is a black flame." The informal artpiece was subsequently removed by the city.
At the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill, the plinth of ''Silent Sam'' and its plaques were removed on January 14, 2019, at the direction of Chancellor Carol Folt (see below).
The plinths of the statues in Richmond, Virginia, were removed in 2022.
List of removals
National
See above regarding the proposed renaming of U.S. Army bases.
* Fort Bliss
Fort Bliss is a United States Army post in New Mexico and Texas, with its headquarters in El Paso, Texas. Named in honor of William Wallace Smith Bliss, LTC William Bliss (1815–1853), a mathematics professor who was the son-in-law of President ...
** After receiving complaints, Forrest Road was renamed Cassidy Road, in honor of the Lt. Gen. Richard T. Cassidy, former post commander.
* U.S. Marine Corps
** In February 2020, Marine Gen. David H. Berger ordered "the removal of all Confederate-related paraphernalia from Marine Corps installations." This includes all Confederate flags, bumper stickers, and "similar items".
In May 2022, The Naming Commission
The Commission on the Naming of Items of the Department of Defense that Commemorate the Confederate States of America or Any Person Who Served Voluntarily with the Confederate States of America, more commonly referred to as The Naming Commissio ...
—a federal body established in the 2021 Defense Authorization Bill—recommended renaming nine U.S. Army bases named for Confederate leaders:
* Fort Benning
Fort Benning is a United States Army post near Columbus, Georgia, adjacent to the Alabama–Georgia border. Fort Benning supports more than 120,000 active-duty military, family members, reserve component soldiers, retirees and civilian employees ...
, Georgia, would be renamed Fort Moore, in honor of Lt. Gen. Hal Moore
Harold Gregory Moore Jr. (February 13, 1922 – February 10, 2017) was a United States Army Lieutenant general (United States), lieutenant general and author. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (United States), Distinguished Service ...
and his wife Julia Moore.
* Fort Bragg
Fort Bragg is a military installation of the United States Army in North Carolina, and is one of the largest military installations in the world by population, with around 54,000 military personnel. The military reservation is located within Cum ...
, North Carolina, would be renamed Fort Liberty.
* Fort Gordon
Fort Gordon, formerly known as Camp Gordon, is a United States Army installation established in October 1941. It is the current home of the United States Army Signal Corps, United States Army Cyber Command, and the Cyber Center of Excellence. It ...
, Georgia, would be renamed Fort Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
.
* Fort A. P. Hill
Fort A.P. Hill is a training and maneuver center belonging to the United States Army located near the town of Bowling Green, Virginia. The center focuses on arms training and is used by all branches of the US Armed Forces, U.S. Armed Forces. It ...
, Virginia, would be renamed Fort Walker, in honor of Dr. Mary Edwards Walker
Mary Edwards Walker, M.D. (November 26, 1832 – February 21, 1919), commonly referred to as Dr. Mary Walker, was an American abolitionist, prohibitionist, prisoner of war and surgeon. She is the only woman to ever receive the Medal of Honor. ...
, the first female Army surgeon.
* Fort Hood
Fort Hood is a United States Army post located near Killeen, Texas. Named after Confederate General John Bell Hood, it is located halfway between Austin and Waco, about from each, within the U.S. state of Texas. The post is the headquarters ...
, Texas, would be renamed Fort Cavazos, in honor of Gen. Richard E. Cavazos
Richard Edward Cavazos (January 31, 1929 – October 29, 2017) was a United States Army four-star general. He was a Korean War recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross as a first lieutenant and advanced in rank to become the United States Ar ...
, who won the Distinguished Service Cross The Distinguished Service Cross (D.S.C.) is a military decoration for courage. Different versions exist for different countries.
*Distinguished Service Cross (Australia)
The Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) is a military decoration awarded to ...
during the Korean War
, date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
.
* Fort Lee, Virginia, would be renamed Fort Gregg–Adams, in honor of Lt. Gen. Arthur J. Gregg
Lieutenant General Arthur J. Gregg, (retired) became the first African American in the U.S. Army to reach the rank of Lieutenant general (United States), lieutenant general on July 1, 1977. Previously, he was the first African American brigadier ...
and Lt. Col. Charity Adams
* Fort Pickett
Fort Pickett is a Virginia Army National Guard installation, located near the town of Blackstone, Virginia. Home of the Army National Guard Maneuver Training Center, Fort Pickett is named for the United States Army officer and Confederate Gen ...
, Virginia, would be renamed Fort Barfoot, in honor of Tech. Sgt. Van T. Barfoot
Van Thomas Barfoot (born Van Thurman Barfoot; June 15, 1919 – March 2, 2012) was a United States Army officer and a recipient of the United States military's highest decoration—the Medal of Honor—for his actions in World War II.
Earl ...
, who received the Medal of Honor for service during World War II.
* Fort Polk
Fort Polk is a United States Army installation located in Vernon Parish, Louisiana, about 10 miles (15 km) east of Leesville and 30 miles (50 km) north of DeRidder in Beauregard Parish.
It was named to honor Leonidas Polk, the first ...
, Louisiana, would be renamed Fort Johnson, in honor of Sgt. William Henry Johnson, who performed heroically in the first African American unit of the United States Army to engage in combat in World War I.
* Fort Rucker
Fort Rucker is a U.S. Army post located primarily in Dale County, Alabama, United States. It was named for a Civil War officer, Confederate General Edmund Rucker. The post is the primary flight training installation for U.S. Army Aviators and ...
, Alabama, would be renamed Fort Novosel, in honor of Army aviator CW4 Michael J. Novosel
Michael J. Novosel Sr. (September 3, 1922 – April 2, 2006) of Enterprise, Alabama served in the United States military during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. He flew the B-29 Superfortress bomber in World War II. In order to s ...
, who received the Medal of Honor for service in Vietnam.
Alabama
* Alabama State Capitol
The Alabama State Capitol, listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the First Confederate Capitol, is the state capitol building for Alabama. Located on Capitol Hill, originally Goat Hill, in Montgomery, it was declared a National ...
, Montgomery: On June 24, 2015, in the wake of the Charleston church shooting
On June 17, 2015, a mass shooting occurred in Charleston, South Carolina, in which nine African Americans were killed during a Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Among those people who were killed was the senior past ...
on June 17, 2015, on the order of Governor Robert J. Bentley, the four Confederate flags and their poles were removed from the Confederate Memorial Monument
The Confederate Memorial Monument is a monument installed outside the Alabama State Capitol.
Description and history
On the north side of Capitol Hill there is a monument dedicated to Alabama's more than 122,000 Confederate veterans of the Civil ...
.
* Anniston
** The monument to Confederate artillery officer John Pelham, erected in 1905, was removed by the city on September 27, 2020. It was rededicated March 26, 2022, on public (county) property. An Alabama
(We dare defend our rights)
, anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama"
, image_map = Alabama in United States.svg
, seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery
, LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville
, LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...
law prohibiting the removal of historical monuments was deliberately broken by the city council of Anniston, Alabama
Anniston is the county seat of Calhoun County in Alabama and is one of two urban centers/principal cities of and included in the Anniston-Oxford Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2010 census, the population of the city was 23,106. Acco ...
.
* Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
** The Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument was erected in 1905. In the midst of the George Floyd protests
The George Floyd protests were a series of protests and civil unrest against police brutality and racism that began in Minneapolis on May 26, 2020, and largely took place during 2020. The civil unrest and protests began as part of internati ...
, was removed by the city on June 1, 2020, in violation of the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act of 2017, a law passed specifically to prevent the removal of this monument. It was the most prominent Confederate monument in the state. The Alabama Attorney General
The Attorney General of Alabama is an elected, constitutional officer of the State of Alabama. The office of the Attorney General is located at the state capitol in Montgomery, Alabama. Henry Hitchcock was elected Alabama's first attorney general ...
has filed suit against the city of Birmingham for violating the statute; the city could be fined $25,000 for the violation but cannot be forced to restore the monument. Mayor Randall Woodfin
Randall Woodfin (born May 29, 1981) is an American lawyer and politician who is the 34th and current mayor of Birmingham, Alabama, after winning the October 3, 2017, runoff against incumbent William A. Bell. He previously served as president o ...
said the fine would be much more affordable than the cost of continued unrest in the city.
* Demopolis
Demopolis is the largest city in Marengo County, Alabama, Marengo County, in west-central Alabama. The population was 7,162 at the time of the 2020 United States census, down from 7,483 at the 2010 census.
The city lies at the confluence of the ...
** 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.
* Huntsville
Huntsville is a city in Madison County, Limestone County, and Morgan County, Alabama, United States. It is the county seat of Madison County. Located in the Appalachian region of northern Alabama, Huntsville is the most populous city in th ...
** The statue of an unnamed Confederate soldier which stood outside the Madison County Courthouse in downtown Huntsville since 1905 was removed on October 23, 2020.
* Mobile
Mobile may refer to:
Places
* Mobile, Alabama, a U.S. port city
* Mobile County, Alabama
* Mobile, Arizona, a small town near Phoenix, U.S.
* Mobile, Newfoundland and Labrador
Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels
* Mobile ( ...
** In 2020, a statue of Confederate Navy Admiral Raphael Semmes
Raphael Semmes ( ; September 27, 1809 – August 30, 1877) was an officer in the Confederate Navy during the American Civil War. Until then, he had been a serving officer in the US Navy from 1826 to 1860.
During the American Civil War, Semmes wa ...
removed from downtown on orders of Mayor Sandy Stimpson. The $25,000 fine was paid by July 10.
* Montgomery
** The statue of Robert E. Lee in front of the Robert E. Lee High School was removed on June 1, 2020. Four people were charged with felony criminal mischief.
* Tuscaloosa
Tuscaloosa ( ) is a city in and the seat of Tuscaloosa County in west-central Alabama, United States, on the Black Warrior River where the Gulf Coastal and Piedmont plains meet. Alabama's fifth-largest city, it had an estimated population of 1 ...
** in September 2020, the University of Alabama
The University of Alabama (informally known as Alabama, UA, or Bama) is a Public university, public research university in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Established in 1820 and opened to students in 1831, the University of Alabama is the oldest and la ...
trustees renamed Morgan Hall, named for a Confederate general and U.S. Senator John Tyler Morgan
John Tyler Morgan (June 20, 1824 – June 11, 1907) was an American politician was served as a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War and later was elected for six terms as the U.S. Senator (1877–1907) ...
, to the English Building.
Alaska
* Kusilvak Census Area
Kusilvak Census Area, formerly known as Wade Hampton Census Area, is a census area located in the U.S. state of Alaska. As of the 2020 census, the population was 8,368, up from 7,459 in 2010. It is part of the Unorganized Borough and therefore ...
: In 1913, Judge John Randolph Tucker named the Wade Hampton Census Area to commemorate his father-in-law. It was renamed Kusilvak Census Area in 2015 to remove a place named for a slave-holding Confederate general.
Arizona
*Picacho Peak State Park
Picacho Peak State Park is a state park surrounding Picacho Peak in Picacho, Arizona. The park is located between Casa Grande and Tucson near Interstate 10 in Pinal County. Its centerpiece spire is visible from downtown Tucson, a distance of . Th ...
: A wooden marker dedicated to Col. Sherod Hunter's Arizona volunteers was removed by Arizona State Parks & Trails in 2015. Deterioration of the wood was the supposed cause of the removal.
*Wesley Bolin Plaza, Arizona State Capitol, Phoenix: Regifted in a letter by the UDC dated June 30, 2020, to the State stating "These monuments were gifted to the State and are now in need of repair but due to the current political climate, we believe it unwise to repair them where they are located." Removed July 22, 2020.
*Jefferson Davis Highway Marker, U.S. 60 at Peralta Road, near Apache Junction: Regifted in a letter by the UDC dated June 30, 2020, to the State stating "These monuments were gifted to the State and are now in need of repair but due to the current political climate, we believe it unwise to repair them where they are located." Removed July 22, 2020.
*Picacho Peak State Park
Picacho Peak State Park is a state park surrounding Picacho Peak in Picacho, Arizona. The park is located between Casa Grande and Tucson near Interstate 10 in Pinal County. Its centerpiece spire is visible from downtown Tucson, a distance of . Th ...
: A brass plaque honoring Confederate soldiers who fought there was vandalized and removed in June 2020. According to officials from Arizona State Parks and Trails and the Arizona Historical Society (AHS), it will not be replaced. Stated one AHS official, "Times change. We probably put our name on a few things we shouldn't have."
Arkansas
In 2017, the Arkansas Legislature
The General Assembly of Arkansas is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The legislature is a bicameral body composed of the upper house Arkansas Senate with 35 members, and the lower Arkansas House of Representatives with 100 ...
voted to stop honoring Robert E. Lee's birthday.
In 2019, the Arkansas Legislature voted to replace Arkansas's two statues in the National Statuary Hall Collection
The National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol is composed of statues donated by individual states to honor persons notable in their history. Limited to two statues per state, the collection was originally set up in the old ...
. Uriah Milton Rose
Uriah Milton Rose (March 5, 1834 – August 12, 1913) was an American lawyer and Confederate sympathizer. "Approachable, affable, and kind," graceful and courteous, he was called "the most scholarly lawyer in America" and "one of the leading ...
, an attorney and founder of the Rose Law Firm
Rose Law Firm is an American law firm headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas.
It dates its origins to November 1, 1820, sixteen years before Arkansas statehood, when Robert Crittenden, born 1797, and Chester Ashley, born 1791, entered into an a ...
, advised against secession, but backed the Confederacy during the war; while not a soldier or elected officeholder, he served the Confederacy as chancellor of Pulaski County, later being appointed the Confederacy's state historian. A statue of white supremacist progressive era-Governor James Paul Clarke
James Paul Clarke (August 18, 1854 – October 1, 1916) was a United States Senator and the 18th Governor of Arkansas as well as a white supremacist.
Biography
Clarke was born in Yazoo City, Mississippi. His father died when Clarke was seven ye ...
was also removed. They will be replaced with statues of Johnny Cash
John R. Cash (born J. R. Cash; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was an American country singer-songwriter. Much of Cash's music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially in the later stages of his ca ...
and journalist and state NAACP
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...
president Daisy L. Gatson Bates, who played a key role in the integration of Little Rock's Central High School in 1957.
* Fort Smith:
** Southside High School: Until 2016, the school nickname was the Rebels. Its mascot was Johnny Reb
Johnny Reb is the national personification of the common soldier of the Confederacy. During the American Civil War and afterwards, Johnny Reb and his Union counterpart Billy Yank were used in speech and literature to symbolize the common sol ...
, a fictional personification of a Confederate soldier. The school also discontinued the use of "Dixie" as its fight song.
* Harrison
Harrison may refer to:
People
* Harrison (name)
* Harrison family of Virginia, United States
Places
In Australia:
* Harrison, Australian Capital Territory, suburb in the Canberra district of Gungahlin
In Canada:
* Inukjuak, Quebec, or " ...
:
**General Jubilation T. Cornpone statue removed in 2003.
* Little Rock
( The "Little Rock")
, government_type = Council-manager
, leader_title = Mayor
, leader_name = Frank Scott Jr.
, leader_party = D
, leader_title2 = Council
, leader_name2 ...
:
** Confederate Boulevard was renamed Springer Boulevard in 2015. The new name honors an African-American family prominent in the area since the Civil War.
**Memorial to Company A, Capitol Guards
The Memorial to Company A, Capitol Guards was an American Civil War memorial in MacArthur Park, Little Rock, Arkansas. It stood just northeast of the former Tower Building of the Little Rock Arsenal, at a junction of two of the park's internal roa ...
, removed June 2020
* Pine Bluff
** Pine Bluff Confederate Monument, removed from public area June 2020[
]
California
* Confederate Corners: Established 1868. Formerly known as Springtown, it was renamed after a group of Southerners settled there in the late 1860s. Name changed back to "Springtown" in 2018.
* Long Beach
Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California.
Incorporate ...
** Robert E. Lee Elementary School. Renamed Olivia Herrera Elementary School on August 1, 2016.
* Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
** Confederate Monument
In the United States, the public display of Confederate monuments, memorials and symbols has been and continues to be controversial. The following is a list of Confederate monuments and memorials that were established as public displays and symb ...
, Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Hollywood Forever Cemetery is a full-service cemetery, funeral home, crematory, and cultural events center which regularly hosts community events such as live music and summer movie screenings. It is one of the oldest cemeteries in Los Angeles ...
. "Covered with a tarp and whisked away in the middle of the night after activists called for its removal and spray-painted the word 'No' on its back", August 15, 2017.
* Quartz Hill:
** Quartz Hill High School
Quartz Hill High School is a public, co-educational high school located in Quartz Hill, California. Founded in 1964, it is the third oldest comprehensive high school in the Antelope Valley Union High School District.
Campus
The basic layout of Qua ...
. Until 1995, the school had a mascot called Johnny Reb, who would wave a Confederate Flag at football games. Johnny Reb had replaced another Confederate-themed mascot, Jubilation T. Cornpone, who waved the Stars and Bars flag at football games. "Slave Day" fundraisers were phased out in the 1980s.
* San Diego
San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...
** Robert E. Lee Elementary School, established 1959. Renamed Pacific View Leadership Elementary School on May 22, 2016.
** Markers of the Jefferson Davis Highway
The Jefferson Davis Highway, also known as the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway, was a planned transcontinental highway in the United States in the 1910s and 1920s that began in Arlington, Virginia, and extended south and west to San Diego, Cal ...
, installed in Horton Plaza in 1926 and moved to the western sidewalk of the plaza following a 2016 renovation. Following the Unite the Right rally
The Unite the Right rally was a white supremacist rally that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, from August 11 to 12, 2017. Marchers included members of the alt-right, neo-Confederates, neo-fascists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, ...
in Virginia, the San Diego City Council removed the plaque on August 16, 2017.
* San Lorenzo
San Lorenzo is the Italian and Spanish name for Lawrence of Rome, Saint Lawrence, the 3rd-century Christian martyr, and may refer to:
Places Argentina
* San Lorenzo, Santa Fe
* San Lorenzo Department, Chaco
* Monte San Lorenzo, a mountain on t ...
:
** San Lorenzo High School
San Lorenzo High School, also known as "SLz", is a public high school located in Ashland, California, and is part of the San Lorenzo Unified School District.
The school's student body reflects the diversity of its surrounding and nearby communit ...
. Until 2017, the school nickname was the "Rebels" – a tribute to the Confederate soldier in the Civil War. Its mascot, The Rebel Guy, was retired in 2016. The school's original mascot, Colonel Reb, was a white man with a cane and goatee who was retired in 1997.
District of Columbia
* U.S. Capitol
The United States Capitol, often called The Capitol or the Capitol Building, is the Seat of government, seat of the Legislature, legislative branch of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, which is form ...
, National Statuary Hall Collection
The National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol is composed of statues donated by individual states to honor persons notable in their history. Limited to two statues per state, the collection was originally set up in the old ...
** Alabama's statue
A statue is a free-standing sculpture in which the realistic, full-length figures of persons or animals are carved or cast in a durable material such as wood, metal or stone. Typical statues are life-sized or close to life-size; a sculpture t ...
of Confederate officer Jabez Curry was replaced by a statue of Helen Keller in 2009.
** In 2019, the Arkansas Legislature
The General Assembly of Arkansas is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The legislature is a bicameral body composed of the upper house Arkansas Senate with 35 members, and the lower Arkansas House of Representatives with 100 ...
voted to replace Arkansas's statues; see above.
** Florida's statue of Edmund Kirby Smith
General Edmund Kirby Smith (May 16, 1824March 28, 1893) was a senior officer of the Confederate States Army who commanded the Trans-Mississippi Department (comprising Arkansas, Missouri, Texas, western Louisiana, Arizona Territory and the Indi ...
is being replaced by one of Civil Rights advocate and educator Mary McLeod Bethune
Mary Jane McLeod Bethune ( McLeod; July 10, 1875 – May 18, 1955) was an American educator, philanthropist, humanitarian, Womanism, womanist, and civil rights activist. Bethune founded the National Council of Negro Women in 1935, established th ...
, which , had not been finished.
**On December 21, 2020, a statue of Robert E. Lee representing Virginia was removed to be replaced by a statue of civil rights activist Barbara Rose Johns
Barbara Rose Johns Powell (March 6, 1935 – September 28, 1991) was a leader in the American civil rights movement. On April 23, 1951, at the age of 16, Powell led a student strike for equal education at R.R. Moton High School in Farmville ...
.
* Confederate Memorial Hall
The Confederate Memorial Hall (sometimes calling itself the "Confederate Embassy") was a museum, library, and social club owned by the Confederate Memorial Association and located at 1322 Vermont Avenue NW in Washington, D.C. The brownstone that ...
, actually a brownstone row house at 1322 Vermont Avenue, just off Logan Circle. "A home and gathering place for Confederate veterans in Washington, D.C., and later, a social hall for white politicians from the South." The organization that owned it, the Confederate Memorial Association, keeps activ
the 1997 web page
that lists the paintings and artifacts at this self-designated "Confederate Embassy". The building was seized and sold in 1997 to pay $500,000 in contempt of court fines that the organization's president, John Edward Hurley (who calls it "my...organization"), received in District of Columbia courts. It then became a private residence.
* In 2017, Washington National Cathedral
The Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in the City and Diocese of Washington, commonly known as Washington National Cathedral, is an American cathedral of the Episcopal Church. The cathedral is located in Washington, D.C., the cap ...
removed stained glass windows honoring Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. In 2016, it had removed the small Confederate flags in those windows.
*On June 19, 2020, protesters in the movement protesting the murder of George Floyd tore down the statue of Albert Pike, doused it with a flammable liquid and ignited it. After several minutes, local police intervened, extinguished the flames, and left the scene. The statue was taken away later on.
Florida
An August 2017 meeting of the Florida League of Mayors was devoted to the topic of what to do with Civil War monuments.
* State symbols
** Until 2016, the shield of the Confederacy was found in the Rotunda of the Florida Capitol
The Florida State Capitol in Tallahassee, Florida, is an architecturally and historically significant building listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Capitol is at the intersection of Apalachee Parkway and South ...
, together with those of France, Spain, England, and the United States – all of them treated equally as "nations" that Florida was part of or governed by. The five flags "that have flown in Florida" were included on the official Senate
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
seal, displayed prominently in the Senate chambers, on its stationery, and throughout the Capitol. On October 19, 2015, the Senate agreed to change the seal so as to remove the Confederate battle flag from it. The new (2016) Senate seal has only the flags of the United States and Florida.
* Bradenton
Bradenton ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Manatee County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city's population is 55,698.
History
Late 18th and early 19th centuries
A settlement established by Maroons or escaped sl ...
** On August 22, 2017, the Manatee County Commission voted 4–3 to move the Confederate monument in front of the county courthouse to storage. This granite obelisk was dedicated on June 22, 1924, by the Judah P. Benjamin Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. It commemorates Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis, and the "Memory of Our Confederate Soldiers." On August 24, while being moved (at 3 AM), the spire toppled and broke. The clean break is repairable, but the County recommends it not be repaired until a new home is found. No final decision has been made as of September 2018, but the Gamble Plantation Historic State Park
The Judah P. Benjamin Confederate Memorial at Gamble Plantation Historic State Park, also known as the Gamble Mansion or Gamble Plantation, is a Florida State Park, located in Ellenton, Florida, on 37th Avenue East and US 301. It is home to the Fl ...
has been suggested as a possible new home for it.
* Crestview
** Florida's Last Confederate Veteran Memorial, City Park (1958). In 2015, ownership was transferred to trustees of Lundy's family and the memorial was moved to private property. Soon after, research determined the memorialized man had not been a veteran but had falsified his age to get veteran benefits. After the removal of the Confederate monument and flag, the park is now referred to as the "former Confederate Park."
* Daytona Beach
Daytona Beach, or simply Daytona, is a coastal resort-city in east-central Florida. Located on the eastern edge of Volusia County near the Atlantic coastline, its population was 72,647 at the 2020 census. Daytona Beach is approximately nort ...
** In August 2017, the Daytona Beach city manager made the decision to remove three plaques from Riverfront Park that honored Confederate veterans.
* Fort Myers
Fort Myers (or Ft. Myers) is a city in southwestern Florida and the county seat and commercial center of Lee County, Florida, United States. The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that the city's population was 92,245 in 20 ...
** The bust of Robert E. Lee, on a pedestal in the median of Monroe Street downtown, was found face down on the ground on March 12, 2019; the bolts holding it in place had been removed. It did not appear to be damaged, and was removed by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The bust had been commissioned in 1966 from Italian sculptor Aldo Pero for $6,000 by the defunct Laetitia Ashmore Nutt Chapter of UDC, chapter 1447. In 2018 there had been conflict over the future of the monument, both at a Ft. Myers City Council meeting and at the monument itself.
::Ft. Myers is the county seat of Lee County, Florida
Lee County is located in Southwest Florida on the Gulf Coast. As of the 2020 census, the population was 760,822. The county seat is Fort Myers (with a population of 86,395 as of the 2020 census), and the largest city is Cape Coral with an esti ...
.
* Gainesville
** Confederate monument called "Old Joe", Alachua County
Alachua County ( ) is a county in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 278,468. The county seat is Gainesville, the home of the University of Florida since 1906, when the campus ope ...
courthouse lawn, erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy
The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is an American neo-Confederate hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers engaging in the commemoration of these ancestors, the funding of monuments to them, ...
and unveiled January 20, 1904. Removed from government land and returned to the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 2017, which moved it to a private cemetery.
* Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood, ...
: Street signs named for Confederate Generals were removed in April 2018.
** Forrest Street, named for CSA Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest
Nathan Bedford Forrest (July 13, 1821October 29, 1877) was a prominent Confederate Army general during the American Civil War and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan from 1867 to 1869. Before the war, Forrest amassed substantial wealt ...
, became Freedom Street.
** Hood Street, named for CSA Gen. John Bell Hood
John Bell Hood (June 1 or June 29, 1831 – August 30, 1879) was a Confederate general during the American Civil War. Although brave, Hood's impetuosity led to high losses among his troops as he moved up in rank. Bruce Catton wrote that "the dec ...
, became Hope Street.
** Lee Street, named for CSA Gen. Robert E. Lee, became Liberty Street.
* Jacksonville
Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the List of United States cities by area, largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the co ...
** Following a petition with 160,000 signatures, Nathan Bedford Forrest
Nathan Bedford Forrest (July 13, 1821October 29, 1877) was a prominent Confederate Army general during the American Civil War and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan from 1867 to 1869. Before the war, Forrest amassed substantial wealt ...
High School (1959), originally an all-white school named in protest against school desegregation, renamed Westside High School in 2014 after decades of controversy.
* Lakeland
** Confederate soldier statue in downtown Munn Park, created by the McNeel Marble Works. "The United Daughters of the Confederacy paid $1,550 to erect the statue in Munn Park, the town square, on June 3, 1910. The city chipped in $200." In May 2018, the Lakeland City Commission approved unanimously the removal of the statue to Veterans Park. However, they specified that private funds would have to cover the costs. In six months, only $26,209 was raised, so commissioners voted in November "to use $225,000 in red light camera citation money to pay for the move". A coalition of individuals and groups opposed to the move, including the Sons of Confederate Veterans, filed suit in federal court alleging that the money being used was public money, but the suit was dismissed in January 2019 "as a matter of law",[ and the city proceeded, noting that it will be moved in the daytime. The move started on March 21, 2019.
* ]Orlando
Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures rele ...
** Confederate "Johnny Reb" monument, Lake Eola Park
Lake Eola Park is a public park located in Downtown Orlando, Florida. Lake Eola is the main feature of the park. Also located in the park (on the west side) is the Walt Disney Amphitheater, which hosts many community events and various perform ...
. Erected in 1911 on Magnolia Avenue; moved to Lake Eola Park in 1917. Removed from the park to a public cemetery in 2017.
* Palatka:
** Putnam County Confederate Memorial (1925) On August 25, 2020, the Putnam County Commission voted 4–1 to move the monument to a location not yet determined.
* Quincy:
** Gadsden Confederate Memorial, Gadsden County
Gadsden County is a county located in the panhandle of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 43,826. Its county seat is Quincy. Gadsden County is included in the Tallahassee, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area. Ga ...
Courthouse. Removed on June 11, 2020, 30 minutes after the Gadsden County Commission voted to do so.
* St. Augustine
** Memorial to William Wing Loring
William Wing Loring (December 4, 1818 – December 30, 1886) was an American soldier who served in the armies of the United States, the Confederacy, and Egypt.
Biography
Early life
William was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, to Reuben a ...
, on the Plaza de la Constitución, erected behind the Government House
Government House is the name of many of the official residences of governors-general, governors and lieutenant-governors in the Commonwealth and the remaining colonies of the British Empire. The name is also used in some other countries.
Gover ...
(1920) On property belonging to the University of Florida
The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...
, the University removed it, as Loring's descendants had requested.
* St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
** Marker for the Stonewall Jackson
Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson (January 21, 1824 – May 10, 1863) was a Confederate general during the American Civil War, considered one of the best-known Confederate commanders, after Robert E. Lee. He played a prominent role in nearl ...
Memorial Highway erected on January 22, 1939, was removed on August 15, 2017.
* Tallahassee
Tallahassee ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Leon County. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In 2020, the population ...
** The Confederate Battle Flag was included on the Senate seal from 1972 to 2016, when it was removed. It was also displayed in its chambers and on the Senate letterhead. In the wake of the racially motivated Charleston shootings, the Senate voted in October 2015 to replace the confederate symbol with the Florida state flag. The new shield was in place in 2016.
** The Confederate Stainless Banner flag flew over the west entrance of the Florida State Capitol from 1978 until 2001, when Gov. Jeb Bush
John Ellis "Jeb" Bush (born February 11, 1953) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007. Bush, who grew up in Houston, was the second son of former President George H. W. Bush a ...
ordered it removed.
* Tampa
Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough County ...
** 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
Confederate History Month is a month designated by seven state governments in the Southern United States for the purpose of recognizing and honoring the history of the Confederate States of America. April has traditionally been chosen, as Confeder ...
.
** 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. In September 2017, the school was seriously damaged by fire of accidental origin. Teachers and students were transferred, and the school with this name went out of existence.
** '' Memoria In Aeterna'' ("Eternal Memory"), Old Hillsborough County Courthouse, in 2017 Annex to the current Courthouse. "The monument is two Confederate soldiers: one facing north, in a fresh uniform, upright and heading to battle, and the other facing south, his clothes tattered as he heads home humbled by war. Between them is a 32-foot-tall obelisk
An obelisk (; from grc, ὀβελίσκος ; diminutive of ''obelos'', " spit, nail, pointed pillar") is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape or pyramidion at the top. Originally constructed by Anc ...
with the image of a Confederate flag chiseled into it." It was called "one of the most divisive symbols in Hillsborough County". It was first erected in 1911 at Franklin and Lafayette Streets, and moved to its former location, in front of the then-new county courthouse, in 1952. After voting in July 2017 to move the statue to the small Brandon Family Cemetery in the suburb that bears its name (Brandon, Florida
Brandon is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Hillsborough County, Florida, United States. It is part of the Tampa–St. Petersburg–Clearwater Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 114,626 at the 2020 ...
), the County Commission announced on August 16 that the statue would only be moved if private citizens raised $140,000, the cost of moving it, within 30 days. The funds were raised within 24 hours. The following day Save Southern Heritage
Save, SAVE, or Saved may refer to:
Places
*Save (Garonne), a river in southern France
*Save River (Africa), a river in Zimbabwe and Mozambique
*Sava, a river in Eastern Europe also known as Save
*Savè, Benin, a commune and city
* Save, Govuro ...
, Veterans' Monuments of America, and United Daughters of the Confederacy filed a lawsuit attempting to prevent the statue's move. On September 5, 2017, a Hillsborough administrative judge denied their request for an injunction. Removal of the monument, which took several days, began the same day. It was cut into 26 pieces to enable its removal. It was moved on September 5, 2017, to the Brandon Family Cemetery; the county paid half the $285,000 cost.
** A x Confederate flag—when erected, the largest such flag ever made—at the privately-owned Confederate Memorial Park, placed so as to be visible at the intersection of I-4 and I-75
Interstate 75 (I-75) is a major north–south Interstate Highway in the Great Lakes and Southeastern regions of the United States. As with most Interstates that end in 5, it is a major cross-country, north–south route, traveling from St ...
, just east of Tampa (actually Seffner, Florida
Seffner is a census-designated place (CDP) in Hillsborough County, Florida
Hillsborough County is located in the west central portion of the U.S. state of Florida. In the 2020 census, the population was 1,459,762, making it the fourth-most ...
), was removed on June 1, 2020, by its owner, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, after threats to burn it were made on social media.
* West Palm Beach
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sunset, Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic languages, German ...
** Confederate monument, Woodlawn Cemetery (1941), located at the front gate, directly behind an American flag. "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 and placed in storage by order of Mayor Jeri Muoio on August 22, 2017, since its owner, the United Daughters of the Confederacy
The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is an American neo-Confederate hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers engaging in the commemoration of these ancestors, the funding of monuments to them, ...
, had not claimed it despite notification. "Believed by local historians to be the last Confederate monument in Palm Beach County."
** Jefferson Davis Middle School. Renamed Palm Springs Middle School in 2005.
Georgia
* State flag: From 1956 to 2001 the state flag of Georgia
Flag of Georgia may refer to:
*Flag of Georgia (country)
** Flag of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic
*Flag of Georgia (U.S. state)
The current flag of Georgia was adopted on February 19, 2003. The flag bears three horizontal stripes ( ...
incorporated the Confederate battle flag
The flags of the Confederate States of America have a history of three successive designs during the American Civil War. The flags were known as the "Stars and Bars", used from 1861 to 1863; the "Stainless Banner", used from 1863 to 1865; and ...
. The current (2003) flag incorporates a less familiar version of the Confederacy's first flag, the Stars and Bars.
* Confederate Memorial Day
Confederate Memorial Day (called Confederate Heroes Day in Texas and Florida, and Confederate Decoration Day in Tennessee) is a cultural holiday observed in several Southern U.S. states on various dates since the end of the American Civil War. ...
and Robert E. Lee Day
Robert E. Lee Day is a state holiday in parts of the Southern US, commemorating the Confederate general Robert E. Lee.
January 19 was marked by the governor of Tennessee as Robert E. Lee Day in 2013.Allison, Natalie (July 12, 2019)."Gov. Bil ...
: Georgia removed the Confederate references in 2015; they are now known as "State Holidays."
* Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
** A portrait of Robert E. Lee was removed from a building on the campus of the University of Georgia
, mottoeng = "To teach, to serve, and to inquire into the nature of things.""To serve" was later added to the motto without changing the seal; the Latin motto directly translates as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things."
, establ ...
by the Demosthenian Literary Society The Demosthenian Literary Society is a literary society focused on extemporaneous debate at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. It is among the oldest literary societies in the English-Speaking world and was founded on February 19, 1803 by ...
.
** A monument was removed from Broad Street in downtown Athens in August 2020, ostensibly due to roadwork. The monument was moved to a nearby battle site.
* Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
: Confederate Ave was renamed United Ave after the neighborhood organized for a change in 2019.
* Brunswick: A monument that was placed in 1902 was removed on May 17, 2022, and although the City Commission voted to remove it in 2020 the final action was delayed due to legal tension.
* Decatur: The DeKalb County Confederate Monument
The DeKalb County Confederate Monument is a Confederate memorial that formerly stood in Decatur, Georgia, United States. The 30-foot stone obelisk was erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy near the old county courthouse in 1908.
De ...
was removed on June 18, 2020, after a court order on June 12.
* Lawrenceville: A Confederate memorial outside the Gwinnett County Courthouse was removed to storage in February 2021.
* Macon: Two Confederate monuments, the Confederate statue on Cotton Avenue (originally erected in the 1870s and originally stood on Mulberry Street prior to the 1950s) and the 'Women of the South' monument on Poplar and First Street (built by the United Daughters of the Confederacy at an unknown date), were moved to Whittle Park outside Rose Hill Cemetery on June 22, 2022, after a 2020 vote by the Macon-Bibb Commission and a lawsuit against removal had ended.
* Sylvania: The Screven County
Screven County is a county located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Georgia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 14,067. The county seat is Sylvania.
History
The county was created on December 14, 1793, and was named for G ...
Confederate Dead Monument was pulled off its pedestal and "virtually destroyed" between August 30 and 31, 2018. The monument had been erected on Confederate Memorial Day
Confederate Memorial Day (called Confederate Heroes Day in Texas and Florida, and Confederate Decoration Day in Tennessee) is a cultural holiday observed in several Southern U.S. states on various dates since the end of the American Civil War. ...
, April 26, 1909, and moved to the city cemetery in the 1950s when the city turned the downtown Main Street park – where the monument was originally located – into a parking lot. The Georgia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans
The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) is an American neo-Confederate nonprofit organization of male descendants of Confederate soldiers
The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the militar ...
is offering a $2,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of the those involved; the reward was subsequently increased to $10,000. A photo of the destroyed monument shows a flagpole with a Confederate flag
The flags of the Confederate States of America have a history of three successive designs during the American Civil War. The flags were known as the "Stars and Bars", used from 1861 to 1863; the "Stainless Banner", used from 1863 to 1865; and ...
.
Indiana
* Indianapolis
Indianapolis (), colloquially known as Indy, is the state capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the seat of Marion County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the consolidated population of Indianapolis and Marion ...
: On June 8, 2020, following the protests
A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration or remonstrance) is a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent towards an idea or action, typically a political one.
Protests can be thought of as acts of coopera ...
in response to the murder of George Floyd, the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument was removed from Garfield Park and dismantled. It originally marked a mass grave for Confederate soldiers who died at Camp Morton
Camp Morton was a military training ground and a Union prisoner-of-war camp in Indianapolis, Indiana, during the American Civil War. It was named for Indiana governor Oliver Morton. Prior to the war, the site served as the fairgrounds for the In ...
, but was moved away from the grave in 1912.
Kansas
* Wichita: 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.
Kentucky
* Bowling Green
A bowling green is a finely laid, close-mown and rolled stretch of turf for playing the game of bowls.
Before 1830, when Edwin Beard Budding of Thrupp, near Stroud, UK, invented the lawnmower, lawns were often kept cropped by grazing sheep on ...
: a "historic" sign indicating that Bowling Green was the Confederate capital of Kentucky was removed in August 2020.
* Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...
: Boone County High School
Boone County High School is located in Florence, Kentucky, United States. The school was opened in 1954, consolidating Burlington, Florence, New Haven and Hebron High Schools. Originally, the school did not have a mascot, but after polling the f ...
. The mascot for the school was Mr. Rebel, a Confederate general who stands tall in a light blue uniform, feathered cap, and English mustache. It was removed in 2017.
* Frankfort: Statue of Jefferson Davis, Kentucky Capitol Rotunda, 1936. (Jefferson Davis was born in Kentucky.) In 2015, the all-white state Historic Properties Advisory Commission voted against removing the statue. In 2017 several prominent Republicans called for its removal. It was removed on June 13, 2020.
* Lexington
** John C. Breckinridge Memorial
The John C. Breckinridge Memorial, originally on the courthouse lawn of Lexington, Kentucky, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 17, 1997, as part of the List of Civil War Monuments of Kentucky, Civil War Monuments of Ken ...
(1911) and John Hunt Morgan Memorial
The John Hunt Morgan Memorial in Lexington, Kentucky, is a monument created during the Jim Crow era, as a tribute to Confederate General John Hunt Morgan, who was from Lexington and is buried in Lexington Cemetery. The monument was originally ...
(1887), Fayette County Courthouse.[ In November 2015, a committee, the Urban County Arts Review Board, voted to recommend removal of both memorials.] The city council approved the removal on August 17, 2017. They were removed October 17, 2017, with the plan to move both to Lexington Cemetery
Lexington Cemetery is a private, non-profit rural cemetery and arboretum located at 833 W. Main Street, Lexington, Kentucky.
The Lexington Cemetery was established in 1848 as a place of beauty and a public cemetery, in part to deal ...
. On July 24, 2018, this was accomplished.
* Louisville
Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border.
...
** The Confederate Monument in Louisville
The Confederate Monument in Louisville is a 70-foot-tall monument formerly adjacent to and surrounded by the University of Louisville Belknap Campus in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. Relocation of the monument to Brandenburg, Kentucky, alon ...
statue was dedicated in 1895 and was placed next to the University of Louisville
The University of Louisville (UofL) is a public research university in Louisville, Kentucky. It is part of the Kentucky state university system. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one of ...
on city property. It was moved to a riverfront park in Brandenburg, Kentucky
Brandenburg is a home rule-class city on the Ohio River in Meade County, Kentucky, in the United States. The city is southwest of Louisville. It is the seat of its county. The population was 2,643 at the 2010 census.
History
Brandenburg was ...
, in December 2016. The cost of the move was $600,000.
** John B. Castleman Monument
The John B. Castleman Monument, within the Cherokee Triangle of Louisville, Kentucky, was unveiled on November 8, 1913. The model, selected from a competition to which numerous sculptors contributed, was designed by R. Hinton Perry of New York. T ...
, Cherokee Triangle
The Cherokee Triangle is a historic neighborhood in Louisville, Kentucky, USA, known for its large homes displaying an eclectic mix of architectural styles. Its boundaries are Bardstown Road to the southwest, Cherokee Park and Eastern Parkway t ...
, 1882. In June 2020, the statue was removed to be moved to Castleman's burial site in Cave Hill Cemetery
Cave Hill Cemetery is a Victorian era National Cemetery and arboretum located at Louisville, Kentucky. Its main entrance is on Baxter Avenue and there is a secondary one on Grinstead Drive. It is the largest cemetery by area and number of buria ...
.
Louisiana
* Baton Rouge
Baton Rouge ( ; ) is a city in and the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-sma ...
: Robert E. Lee High School, renamed Lee High School in 2016, in 2018 Lee Magnet High School, and in 2020, Liberty Magnet High School
Liberty Magnet High School (also known as LMHS, Liberty High) is a public magnet school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States, founded in the 1950s but was closed in 2009. The school was subsequently reopened in 2011 as a magnet school. It is p ...
. Sports teams, formerly Rebels, are now Patriots.
* : The first Confederate monuments removed in 2017 were those of New Orleans, although it was in 2015 that the City Council ordered their removal. Court challenges were unsuccessful. The workers who moved the monuments were dressed in bullet-proof vests, helmets, and masks to conceal their identities because of concerns about their safety. According to Mayor Landrieu, "The original firm we'd hired to remove the monuments backed out after receiving death threats and having one of his cars set ablaze." "Opponents at one point found their way to one of our machines and poured sand in the gas tank. Other protesters flew drones at the contractors to thwart their work." The city said it was weighing where to display the monuments so they could be "placed in their proper historical context from a dark period of American history." On May 19, 2017, the Monumental Task Committee, an organization that maintains monuments and plaques across the city, commented on the removal of the statues: "Mayor Landrieu and the City Council have stripped New Orleans of nationally recognized historic landmarks. With the removal of four of our century-plus aged landmarks, at 299 years old, New Orleans now heads into our Tricentennial more divided and less historic." Landrieu replied on the same day: "These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy; ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, and the terror that it actually stood for."
A seven-person Monument Relocation Committee was set up by Mayor LaToya Cantrell
LaToya Cantrell (''née'' Wilder; born April 3, 1972) is an American politician serving as the Mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana since May 7, 2018. A Democrat, Cantrell is the first woman to hold the office. Before becoming mayor, Cantrell represe ...
to advise on what to do with the removed monuments. The statue of Jefferson Davis, if their recommendation is implemented, will be moved to Beauvoir, his former estate in Biloxi, Mississippi
Biloxi ( ; ) is a city in and one of two county seats of Harrison County, Mississippi, United States (the other being the adjacent city of Gulfport). The 2010 United States Census recorded the population as 44,054 and in 2019 the estimated popu ...
, that is now a presidential library and museum. The Committee recommended that the statues of Robert E. Lee and P.G.T. Beauregard be placed in Greenwood Cemetery, near City Park Avenue and Interstate 10 (where three other Confederate generals are entombed). However, this conflicts with a policy of former mayor Mitch Landrieu
Mitchell Joseph Landrieu ( ; born August 16, 1960) is an American lawyer and politician who served as Mayor of New Orleans from 2010 to 2018. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana from 2004 to ...
, who had directed that they never again be on public display in Orleans Parish. The Battle of Liberty Place Monument
The Battle of Liberty Place Monument is a stone obelisk on an inscribed plinth, formerly on display in New Orleans, in the U.S. state of Louisiana, commemorating the "Battle of Liberty Place", an 1874 attempt by Democratic Party (United States), D ...
will remain in storage.
**Battle of Liberty Place Monument
The Battle of Liberty Place Monument is a stone obelisk on an inscribed plinth, formerly on display in New Orleans, in the U.S. state of Louisiana, commemorating the "Battle of Liberty Place", an 1874 attempt by Democratic Party (United States), D ...
– Erected 1891 to commemorate the Reconstruction Era
The Reconstruction era was a period in American history following the American Civil War (1861–1865) and lasting until approximately the Compromise of 1877. During Reconstruction, attempts were made to rebuild the country after the bloo ...
Battle of Liberty Place
The Battle of Liberty Place, or Battle of Canal Street, was an attempted insurrection and coup d'etat by the Crescent City White League against the Reconstruction Era Louisiana Republican state government on September 14, 1874, in New Orleans ...
(1874) and celebrate Louisiana's White League
The White League, also known as the White Man's League, was a white paramilitary terrorist organization started in the Southern United States in 1874 to intimidate freedmen into not voting and prevent Republican Party political organizing. Its f ...
. Removed April 24, 2017. The workers were dressed in flak jackets, helmets and scarves to conceal their identities because of concerns about their safety. Police officers watched from a nearby hotel.
** Jefferson Davis Monument – Cost $35,000 and was unveiled February 22, 1911, the 50th anniversary of his inauguration as President of the Confederacy, by the Jefferson Davis Monument Association, which was formed in 1898. "The unveiling...was preceded by 'an impressive military parade' led by Major Allison Owen. Veterans of the Army of Tennessee
The Army of Tennessee was the principal Confederate army operating between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River during the American Civil War. It was formed in late 1862 and fought until the end of the war in 1865, participating i ...
, Washington Artillery
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...
, Camp Henry St. Paul, Army of Northern Virginia
The Army of Northern Virginia was the primary military force of the Confederate States of America in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. It was also the primary command structure of the Department of Northern Virginia. It was most oft ...
, veterans from the Soldiers Home, National Guard
National Guard is the name used by a wide variety of current and historical uniformed organizations in different countries. The original National Guard was formed during the French Revolution around a cadre of defectors from the French Guards.
Nat ...
and the Boy Scouts
Boy Scouts may refer to:
* Boy Scout, a participant in the Boy Scout Movement.
* Scouting, also known as the Boy Scout Movement.
* An organisation in the Scouting Movement, although many of these organizations also have female members. There are ...
all attended. A group of 500 schoolgirls formed a living Confederate flag." Removed May 11, 2017.
** General Beauregard Equestrian Statue
The General Beauregard Equestrian Statue, honoring P. G. T. Beauregard, was located in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. The statue, by Alexander Doyle, one of the premier American sculptors, was officially unveiled in 1915.
It was at the ...
– Erected in 1913. Removed May 17, 2017.
** Robert E. Lee monument – Erected in 1884. Statue atop a column with on an earthen mound. Statue removed May 19, 2017.
** Edward Douglass White Jr. statue – On December 23, the statue of Edward Douglass White Jr. was moved from outside the Louisiana Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of Louisiana (french: Cour suprême de Louisiane) is the highest court and court of last resort in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The modern Supreme Court, composed of seven justices, meets in the French Quarter of New Orlea ...
building to the interior near the court museum.
** Renaming of public schools. In 1992, the School Board announced plans to rename schools named after owners of slaves, if the parents, teachers, and children of each school approved. Other public schools renamed, not directly relevant to the war, were originally named for Marie Couvent
Marie Bernard Couvent (c. 1757 – June 28, 1837), also known as Justin Fervin, Maria Gabriel Bernard Couvent, and Marie Justine Cirnaire, was an African-American philanthropist in New Orleans. She is best known for dedicating the property that wou ...
(a black slave owner), George Washington, William C. C. Claiborne
William Charles Cole Claiborne ( 1773–1775 – November 23, 1817) was an American politician, best known as the first non-colonial governor of Louisiana. He also has the distinction of possibly being the youngest member of the United State ...
, Samuel J. Peters, Étienne de Boré
Jean Étienne de Boré (27 December 1741 – 1 February 1820) was a Creole French planter, born in Kaskaskia, Illinois Country, who was known for producing the first granulated sugar in Louisiana. At the time, the area was under Spanish rule. Hi ...
, William O. Rogers ("a general school superintendent who didn't believe blacks should be educated after the 5th grade"), and Edward Douglass White, Jr., a Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
chief justice who voted to uphold the "separate but equal
Separate but equal was a legal doctrine in United States constitutional law, according to which racial segregation did not necessarily violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which nominally guaranteed "equal protecti ...
" doctrine in Plessy v. Ferguson
''Plessy v. Ferguson'', 163 U.S. 537 (1896), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in quality ...
.
*** Jefferson Davis Elementary School renamed in 1993 for Ernest "Dutch" Morial, New Orleans' first African-American mayor.
*** P.G.T. Beauregard Junior High School was renamed Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1967 until 1991. He was the Supreme Court's first African-A ...
Middle School, after the first black Supreme Court justice.
*** Robert E. Lee Elementary School renamed for Ronald McNair
Ronald Erwin McNair (October 21, 1950 – January 28, 1986) was an American NASA astronaut and physicist. He died during the launch of the Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' on mission STS-51-L, in which he was serving as one of three mission spec ...
, the black astronaut killed in the 1986 Challenger explosion
On January 28, 1986, the broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members aboard. The spacecraft disintegrated above the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 11:39a.m. EST (16:39 UTC). It wa ...
.
*** J. P. Benjamin School, named for Jefferson Davis's secretary of war, was renamed for African-American educator and civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
activist Mary McLeod Bethune
Mary Jane McLeod Bethune ( McLeod; July 10, 1875 – May 18, 1955) was an American educator, philanthropist, humanitarian, Womanism, womanist, and civil rights activist. Bethune founded the National Council of Negro Women in 1935, established th ...
.
*** Charles Gayarre Elementary School, named for Charles Gayarré
Charles-Étienne Arthur Gayarré (January 9, 1805 – February 11, 1895) was an American historian, attorney, slaveowner and politician born to a Spanish and French Creole planter family in New Orleans, Louisiana. A Confederate sympathizer and ...
, a financial supporter of the Confederacy, was renamed after New Orleans civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
leader Oretha Castle Haley.
*** Francis T. Nicholls
Francis Redding Tillou Nicholls (August 20, 1834January 4, 1912) was an American attorney, politician, judge, and a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He served two terms as the 28th Governor of L ...
High School, named for the Confederate general and Governor of Louisiana, was renamed Frederick Douglass High School after the abolitionist
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people.
The British ...
leader Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 1817 or 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became ...
.
*** Adolph Meyer
Adolph Meyer (October 19, 1842 – March 8, 1908) was a member of the U. S. House of Representatives representing the state of Louisiana. He served nine terms as a Democrat from 1891 until his death in office in 1908.
Biography
Meyer was born ...
School, named for a Confederate officer and later a congressman, was renamed for the abolitionist Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross, March 10, 1913) was an American abolitionist and social activist. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and subsequently made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 slaves, including family and friends, us ...
.
*** Benjamin Palmer School, named for a pro-slavery pastor influential in Louisiana's decision to secede and join the Confederacy, was renamed Lorraine Hansberry, Lorraine V. Hansberry Elementary School, after the African-American playwright who wrote ''A Raisin in the Sun.''
Maine
* Brunswick, Maine: Confederate plaque, Bowdoin College. Installed in 1965, removed in August 2017.
Maryland
* Maryland, State of Maryland
** State Song: In 2021 Maryland officially repealed its state song, Maryland, My Maryland, due to controversial lyrics that call on Maryland to join the Confederacy and label the Union as tyrannical. In March 2021, both houses of the Maryland General Assembly voted to repeal the state song and governor Larry Hogan signed it into law on May 18, 2021. Since then, Maryland has had no official state song. Previously in 2017, the University of Maryland marching band announced it would no longer play the song before football games and in 2020, Pimlico Race Course scrapped its tradition of playing the song before the race.
* Plaque (1964): Maryland State House Trust removed a plaque from the Maryland State House in 2020.
** Vehicle registration plates of the United States#Confederate States–affinity plates, Sons of Confederate Veterans Commemorative License Plate featuring the Confederate battle flag
The flags of the Confederate States of America have a history of three successive designs during the American Civil War. The flags were known as the "Stars and Bars", used from 1861 to 1863; the "Stainless Banner", used from 1863 to 1865; and ...
was revoked in 2015 after an 18-year legal battle. Existing plates are recalled for mandatory replacement.
* Baltimore
** Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument (Baltimore), Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument (Spirit of the Confederacy), Mount Royal Avenue. Covered with red paint August 13, 2017. In 2015, marked with yellow paint saying "black lives matter". Removed August 16, 2017.
** Confederate Women's Monument
The Confederate Women's Monument was an outdoor memorial by J. Maxwell Miller, installed in Baltimore, in the U.S. state of Maryland in 1917.
The statue was removed in August 2017. At the August 14, 2017, City Council session, they also voted u ...
. Charles Street (Baltimore), Charles Street and University Parkway. Removed August 16, 2017.
** Robert E. Lee Park was renamed Lake Roland (park), Lake Roland Park in 2015.
** Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee Monument. On the northwestern side of the Wyman Park Dell, Charles Village, opposite the Baltimore Museum of Art, and just south of Homewood Campus of Johns Hopkins University (1948). Removed August 16, 2017.
* Catonsville, Maryland, Catonsville: 1942 mural in Post Office depicting "enslaved Black people pulling barrels of tobacco alongside White men on horses" has been covered with plastic sheeting, pending decision on what to do with it and what to replace it with.
* Charlotte Hall, Maryland, Charlotte Hall: Plaque installed in 1993 removed from Charlotte Hall Military Academy, Charlotte Hall Veterans Home.
* Easton, Maryland, Easton: A statue commemorating the Talbot Boys is removed from the lawn of the county courthouse. It was the last Confederate monument remaining on public property in the entire state.
* Ellicott City, Maryland, Ellicott City, Howard County, Maryland, Howard County: Howard County Courthouse Confederate Monument. Dedicated in 1948. Removed on August 22, 2017.
* Lothian, Maryland, Lothian: A statue of Confederate soldier Benjamin Welch Owens was vandalized in June 2020 and toppled in July 2020.
* Rockville, Maryland, Rockville: Confederate Monument, lifesize and bronze, on a granite pedestal.
It was originally donated by the UDC and the United Confederate Veterans, and built by the Washington firm of Falvey Granite Company at a cost of $3,600. The artist is unknown.[ Inscription: "To Our Heroes of Montgomery Co. Maryland That We Through Life May Not Forget to Love The Thin Gray Line Erected A.D. 1913 / 1861 CSA 1865."][ (Gray was the color of Uniforms of the Confederate States Armed Forces, Confederate uniforms.) The dedication was on June 3, 1913 (Jefferson Davis's birthday),] and 3,000 (out of a county population of 30,000) attended. It was originally located in a small triangular park called Courthouse Square. In 1971, urban renewal led to the elimination of the Square, and the monument was moved to the east lawn of the Red Brick Courthouse (no longer in use as such), facing south. In 1994 it was cleaned and waxed by the Maryland Military Monuments Commission. It was marked with "Black Lives Matter" in 2015; a wooden box was built over it to protect it. The monument was removed in July 2017 from its original location outside the Old Rockville Court House to private land[ at White's Ferry in Dickerson, Maryland.
* White's Ferry, Montgomery County, Maryland, Montgomery County: A passenger and vehicle ferry, formerly named ''Gen. Jubal A. Early'' (1954), connects Montgomery County, Maryland, and Loudoun County, Virginia. Owned by White's Ferry, it was named for Confederate General Jubal Early until June 2020. White's Ferry is the only ferry still in operation on the Potomac River.
]
Massachusetts
* Fort Warren (Massachusetts), Fort Warren, Georges Island, Boston Harbor: Memorial to 13 Confederate prisoners who died in captivity. Dedicated in 1963; removed October 2017.
* Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, Oak Bluffs, Martha's Vineyard: Two plaques place in honor of confederate soldiers were removed from the statue of a Union soldier by the town in 2019 and remounted in a contextual display in the Martha's Vineyard Museum.
Michigan
* Lowell, Michigan, Lowell: The 1935 Robert E. Lee Show Boat: A campaign by Former Representative Dave Hildenbrand to request money from Rick Snyder's administration resulted in a taxpayer funded grant to rebuild the confederate-named boat. What followed was a contentious and successful petition to change the boat's name. It was demolished February 28, 2019.
Mississippi
* Statewide
** On June 30, 2020, the Governor Tate Reeves signed a bill which removes the Flag of Mississippi#Second flag, second flag of Mississippi (1894) within 15 days from all public buildings and establish a new flag for the state, that will be voted by referendum in November. Voters approved a new state flag with 68% of the vote on November 3, 2020.
** "Several city and county governments and all eight of Mississippi's public universities have stopped flying the state flag in recent years amid critics' concerns that it does not properly represent a state where 38 percent of residents are African-American."
* Greenwood, Mississippi, Greenwood
** A Confederate monument is to be removed and replaced with a statue of Emmett Till.
* Jackson, Mississippi, Jackson
**Davis Magnet IB School. Renamed "Barack Obama Magnet IB School" in 2017.
**(Col. John Logan) Power Academic and Performing Arts Complex is renamed for Ida B. Wells and Robert E. Lee Elementary School is renamed for "Drs. Aaron and Ollye Shirley" in December 2020.
* Oxford, Mississippi, Oxford
** Confederate Drive renamed Chapel Lane
** In 2016, the University of Mississippi marching band, called The Pride of the South, stopped playing ''Dixie (song), Dixie''. The school got rid of its Colonel Reb mascot in 2003.
Missouri
* Columbia, Missouri, Columbia: In 2018, the Columbia Board of Education voted unanimously to change the name of Robert E. Lee Elementary School to Locust Street Expressive Arts Elementary School.
* Kansas City Metropolitan Area, Kansas City, Missouri: United Daughters of the Confederacy Monument on Ward Parkway. The memorial to Confederate women, a 1934 gift by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, was covered by graffiti on August 18, 2017, and boxed up two days later in preparation for its removal. The monument was removed on August 25, 2017.
* St. Louis
** Memorial to the Confederate Dead (St. Louis), Memorial to the Confederate Dead (1914), removed in June 2017 from Forest Park (St. Louis, Missouri), Forest Park. It awaits a new home outside St. Louis City and St. Louis County, Missouri, County limits (per agreement between the city and the Missouri Civil War Museum in Jefferson Barracks Military Post, Jefferson Barracks).
** Confederate Drive (1914). Road removed and replaced with green space in 2017.
Montana
* Helena, Montana, Helena: Confederate Memorial Fountain (Helena, Montana), Confederate Memorial Fountain (1916). City Council voted August 17, 2017, to remove it. It was removed on August 18, 2017. In its place is a new fountain known as the Unity Fountain, installed in 2020.
Nevada
* Paradise, Nevada, Paradise: University of Nevada, Las Vegas, University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV): Until the 1970s, the school mascot was Beauregard, a wolf dressed in a gray military field jacket and Confederate cap. Beauregard was named for CSA Gen. P. G. T. Beauregard, P.G.T. Beauregard.
New Mexico
* The three Jefferson Davis Highway markers in the state were removed in 2018.
New York
* New York City
** Central Park
*** In November 2017, the cover of Harper's Magazine featured J. C. Hallman's article "Monumental Error" about the Central Park monument of controversial surgeon – and Confederate spy – J. Marion Sims. The timing coincided with the work New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's committee on monuments, and Hallman's article was distributed to members of New York's Public Design Commission. The commission voted unanimously to remove Sims's statue, and it was removed in April 2018. Hallman has since written articles about Sims's statue in Montgomery, Alabama, and is working on a book, ''The Anarcha Quest'', about Sims and his so-called "first cure", Anarcha Westcott.
**Brooklyn
*** 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
The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is an American neo-Confederate hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers engaging in the commemoration of these ancestors, the funding of monuments to them, ...
in 1935.
*** New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has ordered name changes of streets named for Lee and Jackson in the Fort Hamilton section of Brooklyn.
**The Bronx
*** Busts of Stonewall Jackson
Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson (January 21, 1824 – May 10, 1863) was a Confederate general during the American Civil War, considered one of the best-known Confederate commanders, after Robert E. Lee. He played a prominent role in nearl ...
and Robert E. Lee, formerly in the Hall of Fame for Great Americans at Bronx Community College (formerly New York University), were removed in 2017 by New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo.
North Carolina
* Statewide: The North Carolina Department of Transportation stopped authorizing the use of Vanity plate, specialized license plates of the North Carolina Sons of Confederate Veterans
The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) is an American neo-Confederate nonprofit organization of male descendants of Confederate soldiers
The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the militar ...
that depict a Confederate battle flag in January 2021. The organization will be able to display other, non-offensive specialty plates.
* Asheville, North Carolina, Asheville:
** In a joint agreement between the city of Asheville and Buncombe County, North Carolina, Buncombe County to remove two Confederate monuments that are located in or near Pack Square Park, crews began by the removal of the Robert E. Lee Dixie Highway, Colonel John Connally Marker (1926) on July 10, 2020, leaving only the base for future use. On July 14, crews removed the Monument to 60th Regt. NC Volunteers (1905), located in front of the Buncombe County courthouse. Both monuments were moved to a County-own storage facility, where they will stay till a future decision is made.
** The Zebulon Baird Vance, Zebulon Vance Vance Monument, Monument (1898), a obelisk located at the center of Pack Square Park, was completely covered with a shroud on July 10, 2020, at a cost of $18,500 and a monthly scaffolding rental cost of $2,400. A task force will decide the fate of it by either re-purposing or removing it.[
* Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Chapel Hill:
** A 1923 building at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill was named for William L. Saunders, Colonel in the Confederate army and head of the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina. In 2014, the building was renamed Carolina Hall.
** ]Silent Sam
The Confederate Monument, University of North Carolina, commonly known as ''Silent Sam'', is a bronze statue of a Confederate soldier by Canadian sculptor John A. Wilson, which once stood on McCorkle Place of the University of North Carolin ...
, a statue erected in 1913 at the entrance to the University of North Carolina (today the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...
) as a memorial to its Confederate alumni, was pulled down, after years of protests, on August 20, 2018. As of November 20, 2019, the University has not decided whether or where the statue will be restored. In her January 19, 2019, letter of resignation as Chancellor, Carol Folt ordered the removal of the plinth
A pedestal (from French ''piédestal'', Italian ''piedistallo'' 'foot of a stall') or plinth is a support at the bottom of a statue, vase, column, or certain altars. Smaller pedestals, especially if round in shape, may be called socles. In c ...
and plaques as a threat to public safety, as they attracted neo-Confederate, pro-Confederate demonstrators unconnected with the University. A proposal to build a special museum on the campus for the statue was rejected as too expensive and wasteful of resources. A scandal erupted in late 2019 after the press reported a secret agreement to transfer the monument to the Sons of Convederate Veterans, with funding. This deal collapsed once it was exposed. As of August 2020 the statue remains in an undisclosed University of North Carolina warehouse, and its fate remains undecided.
** The Orange County, North Carolina, Orange County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously on October 16, 2018, to remove the Jefferson Davis Highway
The Jefferson Davis Highway, also known as the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway, was a planned transcontinental highway in the United States in the 1910s and 1920s that began in Arlington, Virginia, and extended south and west to San Diego, Cal ...
designation from the portion of US 15 that runs through the county. A marker stands at the intersection of East Franklin Street (Chapel Hill), Franklin Street (formerly the route of US 15) and Henderson Street, in downtown Chapel Hill, adjacent to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina. The bronze plaque and stone pedestal were not removed immediately because it was not clear who their owner was.
* Charlotte, North Carolina, Charlotte:
** In 2015, the Mecklenburg County Confederate Soldiers Monument (1977) was vandalized following the events of the Charleston church shooting on June 17. In July, the monument was removed from its location at the northwest corner of the Old City Hall for cleaning. Later that same month, the "Historic Artifact Management and Patriotism Act" became law while the monument was still located in a city-owned warehouse. With a technicality, city manager Ron Carlee informed the City Council that he was moving the monument to the Confederate section of city-owned Elmwood Cemetery. By end of year, it was moved, next to other Confederate monuments and graves.
** The Confederate Reunion Marker (1924), located on a hill next to Grady Cole Center and American Legion Memorial Stadium, was removed on June 21, 2020, after the Mecklenburg County Commission became aware of online threats to damage or deface it. No decision if the removal would be temporary or permanent.
* Clinton, North Carolina, Clinton: On July 12, 2020, the statue that makes part of the Confederate Soldiers Monument (1916), located on the south side of the Sampson County Courthouse, was removed after it was found bent and teetering on its pedestal that morning. The base currently remains on the Courthouse grounds.
* Durham, North Carolina, Durham:
** Confederate Soldiers Monument (1924) at the Old Durham County Courthouse, was pulled down and severely damaged during a protest on August 17, 2017. Eight individuals were arrested for destroying the memorial, but the charges were later dropped. The monument is being stored in a county warehouse. In early 2019, a joint city-county government committee to consider what to do with the damaged statue, recommended that it be displayed indoors in its crumpled state. "The committee said displaying the statue in its current damaged form would add important context. The proposal would leave the statue's pedestal in place and add outdoor markers honoring Union soldiers and enslaved people." The proposal needs approval from the Durham County Commission. Durham County maintains that the Cultural History Artifact Management and Patriotism Act of 2015 does not apply, since the law does not address damaged monuments. On August 11, 2020, contractors removed the stone pedestal and moved it to a secure location following the recommendation of the City-County Committee on Confederate Monuments and Memorials.
** Robert E. Lee Monument (Durham, North Carolina), Statue of Robert E. Lee in the Duke Chapel, Duke University. Installed in the 1930s in consultation with "an unnamed Vanderbilt University professor." Defaced in August 2017. After vandalism, removed August 19, 2017.
** Julian S. Carr Junior High School, for whites only, built in 1928, closed in 1975. The building became part of the formerly all-white Durham High School (North Carolina), Durham High School, which closed in 1993. Since 1995 the buildings are used by the Durham School of the Arts. On August 24, 2017, the Board of the Durham Public Schools voted unanimously to remove Carr's name from the building.
* Fayetteville, North Carolina, Fayetteville: On June 27, 2020, the 1902 Confederate Monument was removed from its location between the intersection of East and West Dobbin Avenue, Morganton Street, and Fort Bragg Road, in the Haymount neighborhood. The decision of its removal was done by its owner, the J.E.B. Stuart Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), in an effort so the monument would not be vandalized. It is not known if it will be returned, moved or stay in storage indefinitely. This was its third location, originally located at the intersection of Grove, Green, Rowan, and Ramsey Streets; it moved to the northeast corner of the square in 1951 due to road realignments. In 2002, the statue was then moved to its last location, by the UDC, believing the original site lost its charm becoming to commercialized.
* Gastonia, North Carolina, Gastonia: On June 23, 2020, the Gaston County Commissioners approved creating a council of understanding to give a recommendation to the commissioners about the future of the Gaston County Confederate Soldiers Monument (1912), located at the Gaston County Courthouse along Marietta Street. The commissioners voted on July 13 to move the statue and voted on August 3 to gift the monument to the Sons of Confederate Veterans Charles Q. Petty Camp, allowing them to move it onto private property, where it can only be used as a war memorial and educational tool.
* Greensboro, North Carolina, Greensboro: On July 3, 2020, the Confederate Soldiers Monument (1888) was discovered toppled in Green Hills Cemetery. The monument, which marks the grave area of three hundred unknown Confederate soldiers, was moved into storage.
* Greenville, North Carolina, Greenville: The Pitt County Confederate Soldiers Monument (1914) sits on the Pitt County Courthouse grounds in Greenville. On June 15, 2020, the Pitt County Board of Commissioners voted to remove the monument to a temporary location immediately, and work toward a permanent one. It was removed on June 23.
* Henderson, North Carolina, Henderson: On July 3, 2020, the Vance County Confederate Monument (1910), located in front of the old Vance County, North Carolina, Vance County Courthouse, was removed after Vance County Commissioners approved it by vote a few days earlier. The monument is in storage until its disposition can be decided. Upon its removal, crews discovered a time capsule that was buried beneath the monument, with artifacts that date to 1910.
* Hillsborough, North Carolina, Hillsborough: The building that currently houses the Orange County Historical Museum, at 201 N. Churton St., was built in 1934 and housed the (whites only) public library. The UDC donated $7,000 towards its construction, and it was named the Confederate Memorial Library. In 1983, after the library (now the Orange County Public Library) moved into a larger facility, the Museum moved in. The word "Library" was removed from the lettering over the front door, but "Confederate Memorial" remained. In 2015, the Hillsborough Town Board voted to remove the words.
* Lexington, North Carolina, Lexington: In October 2020, the United Daughters of the Confederacy
The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is an American neo-Confederate hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers engaging in the commemoration of these ancestors, the funding of monuments to them, ...
requested that a Confederate monument owned by the organization which stood at the city square in Lexington since 1902 be removed. Despite objections from Davidson County Commissioners, the Confederate monument which stood at the city square in Lexington since 1902 was removed after the Davidson County Superior Court allowed for the city and the Daughters of the Confederacy to have it removed from this location. The statue would be removed from the city square late at night on October 15–16, 2020.
* Louisburg, North Carolina, Louisburg: The Louisburg Town Council voted, in emergency session on June 22, 2020, on a compromise to remove the Confederate Monument (1914) from its location on North Main Street and move it to a municipal cemetery and placed among the graves of the Confederate soldiers it memorializes. It was removed on June 30.
* Oxford, North Carolina, Oxford: On June 24, 2020, the Granville County, North Carolina, Granville County Confederate Monument (1909) was removed from its location in front of the Richard Thornton Library, next to the Granville County Revolutionary War Monument (1926). The Granville Board of Commissioners made the decision as they believed there was a credible threat that it would be forcibly removed and possible violent protest. The monument was placed in storage until a new location was determined. This was the second location of the monument; it was first located in front of the Granville County Courthouse till 1971, when it was moved to the library as a compromise from the Shooting of Henry Marrow, Oxford Race Riot.
* Pittsboro: Confederate Soldiers Monument (1907), Old Chatham County Courthouse; erected by Winnie Davis Chapter, UDC. In 2019, there were "months" of discussion about what to do with it, including "multiple late-night Chatham County Board of Commissioners meetings". There were citizens' groups calling for its removal ("Chatham for All") and for leaving it alone. As it is privately owned (by the UDC), the statute protecting public Civil War monuments does not apply, said the County. In July 2019, the local UDC chapter and the county "signed a memorandum of understanding, agreeing to 'meet, cooperate, and work together in good faith to develop a mutually agreeable framework for "reimagining" the monument.'" In an August 12 statement, the UDC said the statue was given by the UDC to the county, which now owns it, "notwithstanding the statement on the south side of the statue carved in granite", the state statute does apply, and "is inappropriate that we re-imagine the statue in any way". After a court ruled that the statue belonged to the UDC and not the county, it was removed on November 20, 2019.
* Raleigh, North Carolina, Raleigh:
** A Confederate battle flag
The flags of the Confederate States of America have a history of three successive designs during the American Civil War. The flags were known as the "Stars and Bars", used from 1861 to 1863; the "Stainless Banner", used from 1863 to 1865; and ...
hanging in the North Carolina State Capitol, Old North Carolina State Capitol was removed in 2013.
** On June 19, 2020, protesters pulled down two of the three bronze soldiers on the Confederate monument at the state Capitol, with one of the statues hung by its neck from the streetlight. The following day, Roy Cooper, Governor Cooper gave the orders that all three Confederate monuments, located on the Capitol grounds, to be removed for public safety. Two of the three monuments, the Women of the Confederacy (1914) and a statue of Henry Lawson Wyatt (1912), were removed that day and moved into storage. The third, what remains of the monument to fallen Confederate soldiers (1895) was removed from June 21–23. Governor Cooper laid blame to the Cultural History Artifact Management and Patriotism Act of 2015, 2015 law as creating legal roadblocks to removal that eventually led to the dangerous incidents that happened. The two cannons that flanked 75-foot Confederate monument were moved to Fort Fisher#Fort Fisher State Historic Site, Fort Fisher on June 28.
* Reidsville, North Carolina, Reidsville: 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.
* Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Rocky Mount: On June 2, 2020, the City Council of Rocky Mount voted to remove the Nash County, North Carolina, Nash County Confederate Monument (1917). The land, which the monument was located on, will be vacated by the city, reverting ownership to Rocky Mount Mills.
* Salisbury, North Carolina, Salisbury: On June 16, 2020, the Salisbury City Council voted to remove the Fame (Confederate monument), Fame Confederate Monument (1909), located on at the intersection of West Innes and Church Streets, and move it to the Old Lutheran Cemetery, where 175 tombstones for Confederate soldiers were installed in 1996. On June 22, an agreement was signed with the Robert F. Hoke Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy to which they will assist on its removal, storage, and move. The statue was removed on July 6–7, 2020.
* Wadesboro, North Carolina, Wadesboro: On July 7, 2020, the Anson County, North Carolina, Anson County Board of Commissioners voted to remove the Anson County Confederate Soldiers Monument (1906) from its location in front of the Wadesboro courthouse. The following day, the monument was removed and placed in storage, where it will remain until it can be moved onto private property at a later date.
* Warrenton, North Carolina, Warrenton: On June 24, 2020, the Warren County Confederate Monument (1913), located in front of the Warren County, North Carolina, Warren County Courthouse, was removed from its location. The County Commission justified their decision after receiving online several threats to topple the monument; it is currently in storage.
* Wilmington, North Carolina, Wilmington: In the early morning of June 25, 2020, in what has been described as a surprise move, the City of Wilmington removed the Confederate Memorial (Wilmington, North Carolina), Confederate Memorial (1924) and the George Davis Monument (1911). The city's Twitter page posted at 5:28 a.m.: "In accordance with NC law, the city has temporarily removed two monuments from the downtown area. This was done in order to protect the public safety and to preserve important historical artifacts." It is not known where the monuments are stored or what the plans for them will be.
* Winston-Salem
Winston-Salem is a city and the county seat of Forsyth County, North Carolina, United States. In the 2020 census, the population was 249,545, making it the second-largest municipality in the Piedmont Triad region, the 5th most populous city in N ...
: The Confederate Soldiers Monument (1905), formerly in front of the former Forsyth County Courthouse (North Carolina), Forsyth County Courthouse, now private apartments, was removed on March 12, 2019, by the city, due to safety concerns and the property owner's unwillingness to maintain it. Mayor Allen Joines said that the statue would be moved to Salem Cemetery (Winston-Salem, North Carolina), Salem Cemetery after being temporarily in storage. It was vandalized with paint in August 2017 and again late in 2018 with the words "Cowards & Traitors" written with black marker pen, marker. The UDC, its owner, declined to move it to the Salem Cemetery after the city proposed it. On December 31, 2018, the city attorney sent a letter to the UDC saying that the monument is a threat to public safety and calling for its removal by January 31. "And if they don't, we're prepared to file legal action to achieve that removal", said Joines. The owner of the property, Clachan Properties, also asked the UDC to remove it. The local chapter of the UDC sued the city and county on May 4, 2020, claiming the city did not own the statue and did not have the right to remove it. On December 31, 2020, the state division of the UDC announced it was appealing to the North Carolina Supreme Court.
Ohio
* Columbus, Ohio, Columbus: On August 22, 2017, a Confederate statue at Camp Chase was damaged and its head stolen; it has since been repaired.
* Franklin, Ohio, Franklin: Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee roadside plaque. Removed August 16–17, 2017.
* Willoughby, Ohio, Willoughby: Willoughby South High School: In 2017, the school dropped its "Rebel" mascot—a man dressed in a gray Confederate military outfit—but kept the "Rebel" nickname.
* Worthington, Ohio, Worthington: An Ohio state historical marker outside the home where CSA Brigadier General Roswell S. Ripley was born was removed August 18, 2017.
Oklahoma
* Atoka, Oklahoma, Atoka: The Confederate Memorial Museum and Cemetery opened in 1986. In 2016, its name was changed to Atoka Museum and Confederate Cemetery.
* Tulsa, Oklahoma, Tulsa: Robert E. Lee Elementary School, renamed Lee Elementary School in May 2018, then renamed Creek Council Oak Tree, Council Oak Elementary School in August 2018.
Pennsylvania
* "After removing a trio of Confederate historical markers an hour west of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Gettysburg, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission has replaced two with significant revisions that view Confederate milestones through a more critical lens. ...In Pittsburgh, the commission took down a United Daughters of the Confederacy-backed plaque."
South Carolina
* Columbia, South Carolina, Columbia: The Confederate battle flag was raised over the South Carolina statehouse in 1962 as a protest to desegregation. In 2000 the legislature voted to remove it and replace it with a flag on a flagpole in front of the Capitol as a monument. In 2015 the complete removal was approved by the required 2/3 majority of both houses of the Legislature. The flag was given to the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room & Military Museum.
*Rock Hill, South Carolina, Rock Hill: In 2017, the Confederate flag and pictures of Jackson and Lee were removed from the York County, South Carolina, York County courthouse.
Tennessee
The 2016 Tennessee Heritage Protection Act The Tennessee Heritage Protection Act (THPA) was enacted in 2013, and amended in 2016 and 2018. It prohibits the removal, relocation, or renaming of a memorial that is, or is located on, public property without permission (a waiver). Permission requ ...
puts "the brakes on cities' and counties' ability to remove monuments or change names of streets and parks."
* Crossville, Tennessee, Crossville
** South Cumberland Elementary School: Murals painted in 2003, one of a large Confederate battle flag and another showing the team's mascot, the Rebel, triumphantly holding a Confederate battle flag while a boy in a blue outfit is being lynched on a tree, were altered/removed in 2018 after it was discovered by the anti-hate organization located in Shelbyville.
* Franklin, Tennessee, Franklin
** The Forrest Crossing Golf Course, owned by the American Golf Corporation, changed its name to the Crossing Golf Course on September 22, 2017. It had been named after Confederate General and Klansman Nathan Bedford Forrest
Nathan Bedford Forrest (July 13, 1821October 29, 1877) was a prominent Confederate Army general during the American Civil War and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan from 1867 to 1869. Before the war, Forrest amassed substantial wealt ...
.
* Memphis, Tennessee, Memphis
** Three Confederate-themed city parks were "hurriedly renamed" prior to passage of the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act The Tennessee Heritage Protection Act (THPA) was enacted in 2013, and amended in 2016 and 2018. It prohibits the removal, relocation, or renaming of a memorial that is, or is located on, public property without permission (a waiver). Permission requ ...
of 2013. Confederate Park (1908) was renamed Memphis Park; Jefferson Davis Park (1907) was renamed Mississippi River Park; and Forrest Park (1899) was renamed Health Sciences Park. The vote of the City Council was unanimous. At the time the monuments were dedicated, African Americans could not use those parks.
** Jefferson Davis Monument located in Memphis Park, 1904/1964. The city is suing the state to get it removed. It was removed under police guard December 20, 2017.
** Nathan Bedford Forrest Monument (Memphis, Tennessee), Nathan Bedford Forrest Monument commissioned 1901, dedicated 1905, was installed thanks in part to Judge Thomas J. Latham's wife. It was located in the former Nathan Bedford Forrest Park, renamed Health Sciences Park in 2015. Memphis City Council officials were unanimous in seeking to have the statues removed, but were blocked by the Tennessee Historical Commission
The Tennessee Historical Commission (THC) is the State Historic Preservation Office for the U.S. state of Tennessee. Headquartered in Nashville, it is an independent state agency, administratively attached to the Department of Environment and Con ...
under the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act. After exploring legal remedies,[ the city of Memphis decided to sell the two parks to a new non-profit, Memphis Greenspace, whose president was a county commissioner, for $1,000 each. Memphis Greenspace removed the statue, under police guard, the same day, December 20, 2017.] The Sons of Confederate Veterans sued the city, but their suit was unsuccessful. In June 2021, Forrest's and his wife's remains began to be removed from Health Sciences Park to be reinterred on private land.
** Statue of J. Harvey Mathes, Confederate Captain, removed December 20, 2017.
* Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Murfreesboro
** Forrest Hall (ROTC building), Middle Tennessee State University: In 2006, the frieze depicting General Forrest on horseback that had adorned the side of this building was removed amid protests, but a major push to change its name failed. Also, the university's Blue Raiders' athletic mascot was changed to a pegasus from a cavalier, in order to avoid association with General Forrest.
* Nashville, Tennessee, Nashville
** Memorial Hall, Vanderbilt University, 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. Prior to this, Vanderbilt was involved in a lawsuit, dating at least back to 2005, with the United Daughters of the Confederacy. "Michael Schoenfeld, Vanderbilt's vice chancellor for public affairs, said he and other university officials had gotten death threats over his school's decision."
** On June 4, 2020, Montgomery Bell Academy announced plans to remove the Statue of Sam Davis, statue of Sam Davis (1999), which was completed a few days later.
* ''Nathan Bedford Forrest Statue'' was removed on December 7, 2021.
* Sewanee, Tennessee, Sewanee (Sewanee: The University of the South):
** Confederate flags were removed from the Chapel in the mid-1990s "reportedly to improve acoustics".
** A portrait of Leonidas Polk was moved from Convocation Hall to Archives and Special Collections in 2015. However "two other portraits of Polk currently hang in different locations on campus. One can easily find Polk's image and influence all over Sewanee."
** Edmund Kirby Smith, Kirby-Smith Monument (1940). Smith was, after the war, a Sewanee professor of botany and mathematics. Plinth marked with "Elevate People of Color" and "Elevate Women" in 2018. Removed to Graveyard in 2018, at request of Smith's descendants.
Texas
* Arlington, Texas, Arlington:
** Six Flags Over Texas theme park: In August 2017 it removed the Stars and Bars (flag), Stars and Bars Confederate Flag, after flying it for 56 years with the other flags that have flown over Texas. In the 1990s the park renamed the Confederacy section the Old South section and removed all Confederate Battle Flags.
** University of Texas at Arlington changed sports mascot from Rebels to Mavericks "in the 1970s".[
* Austin, Texas, Austin:
**Children of the Confederacy plaque, erected in 1959 and located inside the Texas State Capitol, State Capital, with the assertion that "the War Between the States was not a rebellion, nor was its underlying cause to sustain slavery." The plaque was removed between January 11 and 13, 2019 after a unanimous vote by the Texas State Preservation Board, chaired by Governor Greg Abbott. Calls for its removal started in 2017 by then Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, House Speaker Joe Straus, in a letter to the State Preservation Board that oversees the Capitol grounds, in which he was joined by 40 other lawmakers.
** The Texas Confederate Museum closed in 1988. It was from its opening in 1903 until 1920 in a room on the first floor of the Capital. It then moved to the adjacent Old Land Office Building, where it remained until 1998, much longer than the building had been used by the Land Office. When the building was vacated for renovation, the Museum was not permitted to return. (The building is now the Capital Visitors Center.) It never reopened as it never found another home. Its collections are now divided between the Haley Memorial Library and History Center in Midland, Texas, Midland and the Texas Civil War Museum in White Settlement, Texas, White Settlement, a suburb of Fort Worth.
** Robert E. Lee Elementary School (1939) was renamed for local photographer Russell Lee (photographer), Russell Lee in 2016. He was a prominent photographer with the Farm Security Administration and the first Professor of Photography at the University of Texas.
** Johnston High School: Named for Albert Sidney Johnston, Confederate general killed in the Battle of Shiloh. The school closed in 2008; Liberal Arts and Science Academy, the Liberal Arts and Science Academy is now (2021) at that location.]
** Jeff Davis Avenue. The Austin City Council voted unanimously to rename the street for William H. Holland (politician), William Holland, born a slave, an educator who served one term in the Texas Legislature and became a Travis County, Texas, Travis County commissioner.
** Robert E. Lee Road. The Austin City Council voted unanimously to rename the street, whose signs had been defaced, for Azie Morton, the only African American to hold the office of Treasurer of the United States.
** University of Texas
*** In May 2015, the student government at the University of Texas at Austin voted almost unanimously to remove a Statue of Jefferson Davis (Austin, Texas), statue of Jefferson Davis
Jefferson F. Davis (June 3, 1808December 6, 1889) was an American politician who served as the president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as a ...
that had been erected on the campus's South Mall. Beginning shortly after the Charleston church shooting
On June 17, 2015, a mass shooting occurred in Charleston, South Carolina, in which nine African Americans were killed during a Bible study at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Among those people who were killed was the senior past ...
of June 2015, "black lives matter" was written repeatedly in bold red letters on the base of the statue. Previous messages had included "Davis must fall" and "Liberate U.T." (the University of Texas). The University of Texas officials convened a task force to determine whether to honor the students' petition for removal of the statue. Acting on the strong recommendation of the task force, UT's President Gregory L. Fenves announced on August 13, 2015, that the statue would be moved to serve as an educational exhibit in the university's Dolph Briscoe Center for American History museum. He said: "it is not in the university's best interest to continue commemorating him [Davis] on our Main Mall." Legal action by the Sons of Confederate Veterans
The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) is an American neo-Confederate nonprofit organization of male descendants of Confederate soldiers
The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the militar ...
was unsuccessful. The statue was removed on August 30, 2015.
*** After the removal of the Jefferson Davis statue in 2015 there were four remaining Confederate statues left on the South Mall at the University of Texas, portraying Generals Statue of Robert E. Lee (Austin, Texas), Robert E. Lee and Statue of Albert Sidney Johnston (University of Texas at Austin), Albert Sidney Johnston, and Confederate Postmaster Statue of John Henninger Reagan, John H. Reagan. They were dedicated in 1933. On August 20–21, 2017 the university removed the three Confederate statues from the Austin campus grounds and moved them to a museum. The decision was inspired by the Unite the Right rally
The Unite the Right rally was a white supremacist rally that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, from August 11 to 12, 2017. Marchers included members of the alt-right, neo-Confederates, neo-fascists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, ...
August 10–11 in Charlottesville. At the same time, a statue of Texas Governor Jim Hogg was also removed, although he had no direct link with the Confederacy. In 2018, it was announced that it would be reinstalled at a different location.
** IDEA Public Schools, IDEA Allan School, a charter school, was renamed IDEA Montopolis in 2018. It had been named for Confederate Army officer John T. Allan. Four other related properties in Austin are being similarly renamed.
** In 2019, Lanier High School was renamed Navarro High School in honor of 2007 graduate Juan Navarro, a U.S. Army officer killed in Afghanistan. Sidney Lanier, the "poet of the Confederacy", served as a private in the CSA.
* Dallas:
** Removal of the Confederate War Memorial (Dallas), Confederate War Memorial in Dallas was approved by the Dallas City Council in February 2019, but a citizens' group filed lawsuits, and the planned removal was blocked indefinitely later that year by the Fifth Court of Appeals of Texas. On June 11, 2020, the city filed an emergency motion for immediate permission to remove the monument, citing possible serious injury to protesters if the monument were to be toppled during a planned rally at the site. It was removed on June 24, 2020.
** In 2016, the John B. Hood Middle School renamed itself, with the concurrence of the Dallas Independent School District Board of Trustees, as the Piedmont Global Academy.
** The Robert E. Lee (Proctor), Robert E. Lee statue in Lee Park along Turtle Creek Boulevard, dedicated in 1936 to celebrate the Texas Centennial Exposition, was removed on September 14, 2017, after the City Council voted 13–1 in favor of removal. The city considered lending it to the Texas Civil War Museum in White Settlement, Texas, White Settlement, the only local institution willing to accept it, but declined because it would not be displayed in a historical context the Dallas City Commission found acceptable. In June 2019, the city sold it in an online auction for $1,435,000, on condition that it not be displayed in the Dallas–Fort Worth area.
**Thomas Jefferson High School (Dallas), Thomas Jefferson High School's sports mascot changed from Rebels to Patriots "in the 1970s".
**William L. Cabell Elementary School, named after William Lewis Cabell, was renamed Chapel Hill Preparatory in 2018.
** Stonewall Jackson Elementary School (1939) in Lower Greenville was renamed Mockingbird Elementary School (Dallas), Mockingbird Elementary School in 2018, after Mockingbird Lane on which it is located.
**Robert E. Lee Elementary School was renamed Geneva Heights Elementary School in 2018.
** Robert E. Lee Park: The park was temporarily renamed "Oak Lawn Park" until a permanent name can be approved.
** Lee, Gano (Richard Montgomery Gano), Stonewall, Beauregard, and Cabell (William Lewis Cabell, mayor of Dallas) streets are currently named for Confederate generals. They will be renamed at a future date.
* Fort Worth:
** Granite marker remembering pioneer banker and Confederate soldier Khleber Miller Van Zandt, after the war commander of the trans-Mississippi division of the United Confederate Veterans. Removed on August 18, 2017, and given to the Texas Civil War Museum in White Settlement, Texas, a Fort Worth suburb.
** Granite marker remembering a violent east Texas Ku Klux Klansman, Confederate Brig. Gen. Hinchie Mabry, H.P. "Hinchie" Mabry. Removed on August 18, 2017, and given to the Texas Civil War Museum.
** Southwest High School (Fort Worth, Texas), Southwest High School's sports logo changed from Rebels to Raiders "in the 1980s".[
** Richland High School (Texas) formerly had the Confederate flag painted on the floor of the gymnasium.][
* Garland, Texas, Garland:
** South Garland High School removed various Confederate symbols in 2015. A floor tile mosaic donated by the Class of 1968 and a granite sign in front of the school were replaced. Both had incorporated the Confederate flag, which was part of the school's original coat of arms. In addition, the district has dropped "Dixie" as the tune for the school fight song. The school changed its Colonel mascot's uniform from Confederate gray to red and blue in 1991.
* Houston:
** Dowling Street. Named for Confederate commander Richard W. Dowling. Renamed Emancipation Avenue in 2017. The street leads to Emancipation Park. The site originally was the only municipal park available to blacks, who pooled their money in 1872 to buy the property to celebrate their freedom.
** In 2016, Jackson Middle School was renamed for Hispanic community activist Yolanda Black Navarro.][
** Lee High School (Houston, Texas), Lee High School (1962). Originally known as Robert E. Lee High School, district leaders dropped the "Robert E." from the school's title to distance the school from the Confederate general. School officials changed the name to Margaret Long Wisdom High School in 2016.]
** Westbury High School (Houston), Westbury High School changed the nickname of its athletic teams from the "Rebels" to the "Huskies."
* Lakeside, Tarrant County, Texas, Lakeside, Tarrant County
** The "smallest Confederate monument", two small Confederate flags, was removed from Confederate Park in August 2017.
* Midland, Texas, Midland: Prior to 2002, the Commemorative Air Force was the Confederate Air Force.
* San Antonio:
** Confederate Soldiers' Monument, dedicated April 28, 1899, located in Travis Park next to Alamo Mission in San Antonio, The Alamo. Removed September 1, 2017.
** Robert E. Lee High School renamed LEE (Legacy of Education Excellence) High School, reportedly to preserve the school's history and minimize the expense of renaming, in 2017.
Utah
* St. George, Utah, St. George
**Dixie State University renamed, in 2022 to ''Utah Tech University''.
***Name of yearbook changes from "The Dixie" to "The Confederate." (1966) Changed to "Dixie College Yearbook" (1994)
***Use of confederate battle flag stopped being used as symbol of University, 1995
***''Rodney the Rebel'' Mascot dropped in 2005
***''Rebels'' Nickname dropped 2007 (Changed briefly to ''Red Storm'', now ''Utah Tech Trailblazers, Trailblazers'')
***Confederate statue ''The Rebels'' (1983; removed 2012.)
***Dormitory buildings named after confederate battle, "Shiloh Hall", Torn down in 2019.
**''Dixie Regional Medical Center'' renamed to Intermountain St. George Regional Hospital
Vermont
* Brattleboro, Vermont, Brattleboro:
** Brattleboro Union High School. Until 2004, the school mascot was Colonel Reb, a Confederate plantation owner.
* South Burlington:
** South Burlington High School Confederate themed Captain Rebel mascot (1961), use of the Confederate Battle Flag, and playing of Dixie (song), ''Dixie'' almost immediately sparked controversy during the Civil Rights era and every decade since. The school board voted to retain the name in 2015 but to change it in 2017. "The Rebel Alliance", a community group opposed to changing the mascot has led two successful efforts to defeat the school budget in public votes as a protest. The students choose the "Wolves" and rebranding is proceeding.
Virginia
* Statewide
**Confederate History Month
Confederate History Month is a month designated by seven state governments in the Southern United States for the purpose of recognizing and honoring the history of the Confederate States of America. April has traditionally been chosen, as Confeder ...
(April) last celebrated in 2000.
**Lee-Jackson Day (January 17) was last celebrated in 2020. On February 6, 2020, Virginia passed legislation ending celebration of Lee-Jackson day: a state holiday commemorating Robert E Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. The holiday was replaced with Election Day (United States), Election Day and signed into law by Virginia Governor Ralph Northam
Ralph (pronounced ; or ,) is a male given name of English, Scottish and Irish origin, derived from the Old English ''Rædwulf'' and Radulf, cognate with the Old Norse ''Raðulfr'' (''rað'' "counsel" and ''ulfr'' "wolf").
The most common forms ...
.
* Alexandria, Virginia, Alexandria
** In 2017, a portrait of Robert E. Lee (born in Alexandria) that hung in the City Council chambers was moved to the Lyceum, a local history museum.
** In 2017, the Vestry of Christ Church (Alexandria) voted unanimously to remove from the sanctuary plaques honoring Washington and Lee, placed there just after Lee's death in 1870, saying they "make some in our presence feel unsafe or unwelcome."
** In 2017, "[a] hotel on King Street removed a plaque that had been bolted to the wall of the building for decades and gave an incomplete account of the first war-related deaths after the Union invaded Alexandria on May 24, 1861. The marker, posted in 1929 by the Sons and Daughters of Confederate Veterans, memorialized the first Southerner killed by the Union, belying the fact that he had first shot and killed a Northern colonel on the property."[
** In 2020, the ''Appomattox (statue), Appomattox'' statue (1899) was removed. Dedicated to the Confederate dead and placed in the middle of the intersection of Washington and Prince Streets, in 2016 the mayor and city council voted unanimously for it to be moved to a museum. The statue was removed and put into storage in June 2020 by its owners, the ]United Daughters of the Confederacy
The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is an American neo-Confederate hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers engaging in the commemoration of these ancestors, the funding of monuments to them, ...
.
* Arlington County, Virginia, Arlington County
** Jefferson Davis Highway (U.S. 1) was renamed Richmond Highway in 2019.
** Arlington County announced in December 2020 that Robert E. Lee's former home, Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial, Arlington House, was being removed from its icon and seal, "primarily because it was built by enslaved people and later owned by Lee, who led the Confederate Army during the Civil War."
* Bailey's Crossroads, Virginia, Bailey's Crossroads
** J. E. B. Stuart High School (1958), named for Confederate general J. E. B. Stuart. Following J. E. B. Stuart High School#Name Controversy and Protest, protests by students and alumni that began in June 2015, the school board voted in July 2017 to rename the school as "Justice High" by the beginning of the 2019 school year. The new name took effect July 1, 2018.
* Bowling Green, Virginia, Bowling Green
** Confederate Monument (1906). On August 25, 2020, the Caroline County, Virginia, Caroline County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to remove the monument.
* Charlottesville
Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Queen Cha ...
** Lee Park, the setting for an Robert Edward Lee (sculpture), equestrian statue of Robert E. Lee, was renamed Emancipation Park on February 6, 2017. In July 2018 it was renamed again, to Market Street Park.
** On February 6, 2017, 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
The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) is an American neo-Confederate nonprofit organization of male descendants of Confederate soldiers
The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the militar ...
and others. The prospect of removal, as well as the park renaming, brought numerous white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and other alt-right figures to the Unite the Right rally
The Unite the Right rally was a white supremacist rally that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, from August 11 to 12, 2017. Marchers included members of the alt-right, neo-Confederates, neo-fascists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, ...
of August 2017, in which there were three fatalities. In June 2016 the pedestal had been spray painted with the words "Black Lives Matter", and overnight between July 7 and 8, 2017, it was vandalized by being daubed in red paint. 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." The statues were covered in black shrouds on August 23, 2017. By order of a judge, the shrouds were removed in February 2018. After enabling legislation was signed by Governor Ralph Northam in April 2020, and following a 2021 Virginia Supreme Court ruling against opponents of removal, the Lee statue was removed on July 11, 2021.
** On September 6, 2017, the city council voted to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson from Emancipation Park. The statue was removed on July 11, 2021.
** Jackson Park, named for Stonewall Jackson, was renamed Justice Park. In July 2018, it was renamed a second time, to Court Square Park.
** 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."
** On September 12, 2020, ''At Ready (statue), At Ready'', a statue of a Confederate soldier in front of the Albemarle County courthouse in Charlottesville, where it had stood since 1909, was taken down after a unanimous vote of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors. A cannon and pyramid of cannonballs were also removed.
* Doswell, Virginia, Doswell
** Major amusement park Kings Dominion operated the popular "Rebel Yell (roller coaster), Rebel Yell" roller coaster from the park's 1975 opening until 2017. The ride's name referenced the "Rebel yell", a battle cry used by Confederate soldiers during the Civil War. On February 2, 2018, the park announced that the attraction would be renamed to "Racer 75" beginning in the 2018 season, although Kings Dominion did not comment on the relationship between the name change and the previous name's Confederate roots in its press release.
* Fairfax County, Virginia, Fairfax County
**Former J. E. B. Stuart High School reopened as Justice High School in September 2018. The school is near Munson Hill, Stuart's headquarters. It was given Stuart's name in 1958 as part of the county's "massive resistance" against Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court order to end racial segregation of public schools.
**Former Robert E. Lee High School in Springfield, Virginia, Springfield was renamed John R. Lewis High School on July 23, 2020, effective for the 2020/2021 school year.
* Front Royal, Virginia, Front Royal
** The segregation academy John S. Mosby Academy, named for Confederate hero John S. Mosby, was founded in 1959 as an all-white school. It closed in 1969.
* Hampton, Virginia, Hampton
** Robert E. Lee Elementary School, closed 2010.
* Isle of Wight, Virginia, Isle of Wight
** A generic "Johnny Reb" statue and its base, referring to "Confederate Dead", were removed from in front of the former Isle of Wight County, Virginia, Isle of Wight County Courthouse on May 8, 2021.
* Lexington, Virginia, Lexington
** In 2011, the City Council passed an ordinance to ban the flying of flags other than the United States flag, the Virginia Flag, and an as-yet-undesigned city flag on city light poles. Various flags of the Confederate flag, Confederacy had previously been flown on city light poles to commemorate the Virginia holiday Lee–Jackson Day, which was formerly observed on the Friday before Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. About 300 Confederate flag supporters, including members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans
The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) is an American neo-Confederate nonprofit organization of male descendants of Confederate soldiers
The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the militar ...
, rallied before the City Council meeting, and after the vote the Sons of Confederate Veterans vowed to challenge the new local ordinance in court. Court challenges have not been successful and the ordinance remains in effect. The city tried to prevent individuals from flying Confederate flags on their own property, but a 1993 federal injunction blocked effort.
** On the campus of Washington and Lee University, a large Confederate battle flag and a number of related flags were removed from the Lee Chapel in 2014.
** Close to Lee Chapel is the older Grace Episcopal Church (Lexington, Virginia), Grace Episcopal Church, where Lee attended. In 1903 the church was renamed the R. E. Lee Memorial Church. In 2017, the church changed its name back to Grace Episcopal Church.
**On September 3, 2020, the Lexington City Council voted to rename Stonewall Jackson Cemetery to Oak Grove Cemetery. Jackson is buried in the cemetery.
**Virginia Military Institute (VMI) removed a statue of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson
Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson (January 21, 1824 – May 10, 1863) was a Confederate general during the American Civil War, considered one of the best-known Confederate commanders, after Robert E. Lee. He played a prominent role in nearl ...
, a former VMI professor, on December 7, 2020. The statue is to be moved to a Civil War museum on a battlefield where VMI cadets and alumni were killed or wounded.
* Lynchburg, Virginia, Lynchburg
** A statue of Confederate veteran George Morgan Jones was removed from the Randolph College grounds on August 25, 2017.
* Manassas, Virginia, Manassas
** Stonewall Middle School (1974) was renamed Unity Braxton Middle School in 2020.
** Stonewall Jackson High School (1973) was renamed Unity Reed High School in 2020.
* Norfolk, Virginia, Norfolk
** In 2020, the city removed the statue atop the Norfolk Confederate Monument (1907) and put it into storage, pending the dismantling of the rest of the monument.
**In June 2020 the City of Norfolk removed the long standing historical marker commemorating Father Abram Ryan "The Poet Priest of the Confederacy" which had stood on the corner of Tidewater and Lafayette Boulevard for 85 years.
* Petersburg, Virginia, Petersburg: Three schools were renamed effective July 1, 2018. A $20,000 private donation covered the costs.
** A.P. Hill Elementary became Cool Spring Elementary
** Robert E. Lee Elementary became Lakemont Elementary
** J.E.B. Stuart Elementary became Pleasants Lane Elementary.
* Portsmouth, Virginia, Portsmouth
** The Confederate Monument (Portsmouth, Virginia), Confederate Monument, located in the town square. Local politicians had been contemplating the fate of the monument since 2015, in 2017 the town's mayor announced that it would be moved to a cemetery, and in 2018 courts were involved to determine who owned it. In June 2020, protesters beheaded several of the statues and tore one down, injuring a man in the process. The city covered up the monument as they tried to figure out if, and when, they could move the remainder.
* Richmond, Virginia, Richmond
**Monument Avenue, 2020
***On June 10, 2020, protesters in the movement protesting the murder of George Floyd tore down the Jefferson Davis Memorial (Richmond, Virginia), Jefferson Davis Memorial. It had been marked with "Black Lives Matter" in 2015.
***On July 1, 2020, the first day possible under a new statute, the city removed the Stonewall Jackson Monument (1919), by sculptor Frederick William Sievers.
***On July 2, 2020, the Matthew Fontaine Maury Monument, statue of Matthew Fontaine Maury (1929), also by Sievers, was removed by the city.
***On July 7, 2020, the city removed the J. E. B. Stuart Monument (1907) by Frederick Moynihan.
** In February 2000, the City Council voted to change the names of the J. E. B. Stuart and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson bridges, which cross the James River (Virginia), James River, to the names of Samuel Wilbert Tucker, Samuel Tucker and Curtis J. Holt Sr., Curtis Holt, two local notables in the civil rights movement.
** J.E.B. Stuart Elementary School (1922) was renamed Barack Obama Elementary School in 2018.
** On June 6, 2020, the Statue of Williams Carter Wickham (1891) in Monroe Park was toppled from its platform by Black Lives Matter protesters.
** On June 16, 2020, the Howitzer Monument (1892) by sculptor Caspar Buberl was torn down by Black Lives Matter protesters.
** On July 8, 2020, the statue on top of the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors memorial in the Libby Hill, Richmond, Libby Hill district was removed by the city.
**Busts of Robert E. Lee and eight other Confederate leaders were removed from the Old House Chamber in the Virginia State Capitol building on July 23, 2020.
**Monument Ave, 2021
***On September 8, 2021, the Robert E. Lee Monument (Richmond, Virginia), Robert E. Lee Monument (1890) by Antonin Mercié was removed at the direction of the state government.
**A statue of Lieutenant General A. P. Hill was taken down from the center of the Laburnum Avenue and Hermitage Road intersection on December 12, 2022 by the City of Richmond, completing the removal of statues of Confederate officers in the former capital of the Confederacy
* Roanoke, Virginia, Roanoke
** Stonewall Jackson Middle School was renamed John P. Fishwick Middle School in July 2018.
* Staunton, Virginia, Staunton
** Robert E. Lee High School (1967), was renamed Staunton High School in 2018/2019.
Washington (state)
* Bellingham:
** Pickett Bridge, commemorating an earlier wooden bridge erected by US Army Capt. Pickett over Whatcom Creek. Sign erected in 1920, was removed August 18, 2017, along with signs leading to Pickett House (Bellingham, Washington), Pickett House. Signs leading to Pickett House (Bellingham, Washington), Pickett House were put back up September 2017.
* Blaine:
** A stone marker at the northernmost end of the state designating Washington State Route 99, Highway 99 the "Jefferson Davis Highway, Jeff Davis Highway" was erected in the 1930s by the Daughters of the Confederacy, with State approval. It was removed in 2002 through the efforts of State Representative Hans Dunshee and city officials, and after it was discovered that the highway was never officially designated to memorialize Davis by the State. The marker stone was moved to Jefferson Davis Park, Washington, Jefferson Davis Park, a private park operated by the Sons of Confederate Veterans
The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) is an American neo-Confederate nonprofit organization of male descendants of Confederate soldiers
The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the militar ...
just outside Ridgefield, Washington, Ridgefield right beside I-5.
* Everett:
**In 2002, the Washington House of Representatives unanimously approved a bill proposed by Hans Dunshee to rename part of Washington State Route 99, which had been the Jefferson Davis
Jefferson F. Davis (June 3, 1808December 6, 1889) was an American politician who served as the president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as a ...
Highway. The bill, however, was killed by a committee of the Washington State Senate, state's Senate. In March 2016, the Washington State Legislature unanimously passed a joint resolution, joint memorial that asked the Washington State Transportation Commission, state's transportation commission to designate the road as the "William P. Stewart Memorial Highway" to honor an African-American volunteer during the Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
who later settled in the nearby city of Snohomish, Washington, Snohomish. In May 2016, the transportation commission agreed to rename the road.
*Vancouver:
** In 1998, officials of the city of Vancouver, Washington, removed a marker of the Jefferson Davis Highway (formerly U.S. Route 99) and placed it in a cemetery shed. This action later became controversial when the issues surrounding the Blaine marker were being discussed in the state legislature in 2002. The marker was subsequently moved twice more, to eventually be placed alongside Interstate 5 in Washington, Interstate 5 on Jefferson Davis Park, Washington, private land purchased for the purpose of giving this marker a permanent home in 2007.
* Seattle:
** The Robert E. Lee Tree was one of many trees in Seattle's Ravenna Park dedicated to persons of note. The tree and plaque were removed in 1926.
** The United Confederate Veterans Memorial was a Confederate monument in Seattle's privately-owned Lake View Cemetery. The monument was toppled by unknown persons, apparently on July 3, 2020, after weeks of protests in the city following the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota.
*East Wenatchee, Washington, East Wenatchee
**Robert E. Lee Elementary School (1955). The school district rejected a name change in 2015, and again in 2017. In 2018 it voted to change the name to Lee Elementary School.
West Virginia
* Charles Town, West Virginia, Charles Town: It was in Charles Town, in the Jefferson County Courthouse, that abolitionist
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people.
The British ...
John Brown (abolitionist), John Brown was tried; he was hanged nearby. In 1986, the UDC, who oppose memorials to John Brown, erected at the entrance to the Jefferson County Courthouse (Charles Town, West Virginia), Jefferson County Courthouse a bronze plaque "in honor and memory of the Confederate soldiers of Jefferson County, who served in the War Between the States". The local newspaper, ''Spirit of Jefferson'', and a group of local African Americans called for its removal. On September 7, 2017, the Jefferson County, West Virginia, Jefferson County Commission voted 5–0 to let the plaque be. The group Women's March West Virginia attended each County Commission meeting holding signs that say "Remove the plaque". After the 2018 elections, the composition of the County Commission changed; the plaque was the main issue in the election. On December 6, 2018, the Commission voted 3–2 to remove the plaque, and it was removed December 7, and returned to the UDC.
Wisconsin
* Madison, Wisconsin, Madison
** Confederate Rest section of Forest Hill Cemetery (Madison, Wisconsin), Forest Hill Cemetery. This section of the cemetery contains the remains of more than 100 Confederate soldiers who died as Prisoner of War, 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.
*** In August 2017, Madison mayor Paul Soglin ordered the removal of a plaque and a larger stone monument, erected in 1906 with UDC funding. The plaque, which referred to the interred Confederates as "valiant Confederate soldiers" and "unsung heroes", was removed on August 17, 2017. Removal of the stone monument, which contains the names of the soldiers buried there, did not take place immediately because of legal challenges and logistical concerns. On October 2, 2018, the Madison City Council voted 16–2 for its removal, overruling a Landmark Commission's recommendation that it stay.[
*** In January 2019, a stone cenotaph etched with the names of Confederate 140 prisoners of war was removed from the cemetery by the Madison Parks Department and transferred to storage at the Wisconsin Veterans Museum.]
Brazil
* From 1975 to 1998, a version of the Confederate battle flag appeared in the shield and flag of Americana, Brazil, a city settled by :Confederate expatriates, Confederate expatriates.
Canada
* Montreal:
**In 1957, the United Daughters of the Confederacy had a plaque installed on the outer wall of a Hudson's Bay Company store, commemorating Jefferson Davis
Jefferson F. Davis (June 3, 1808December 6, 1889) was an American politician who served as the president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. He represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as a ...
's brief stay in the city; the plaque was removed following the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally
The Unite the Right rally was a white supremacist rally that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, from August 11 to 12, 2017. Marchers included members of the alt-right, neo-Confederates, neo-fascists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, ...
of August 2017, in response to public complaints.
* Eastern Passage, Nova Scotia:
**In March 2021, the Tallahassee Community School was renamed Horizon Elementary School. The school had been named after the Confederate steamship, steamer , which a local maritime pilot, pilot had guided around nearby Lawlor Island in August 1864 to avoid Union warships rumored to be monitoring the main entrance to Halifax Harbour. Although nominally a reference to the pilot's navigational feat, the name had grown controversial due to the Confederacy's support of slavery.
Worldwide
As part of the worldwide George Floyd protests
The George Floyd protests were a series of protests and civil unrest against police brutality and racism that began in Minneapolis on May 26, 2020, and largely took place during 2020. The civil unrest and protests began as part of internati ...
, members of the Black Lives Matter movement have also removed or marked statues of other historical figures that were responsible or alleged of causing suffering or harm against Black people. In Bristol, England, protesters toppled Statue of Edward Colston, a statue of Atlantic slave trade, slave trader Edward Colston, who played a prominent role in the Bristol slave trade, while other protesters in Ghent vandalized Bust of Leopold II of Belgium, Ghent, a statue of King Leopold II of Belgium, the ruler of the Congo Free State during Atrocities in the Congo Free State, atrocities that took place there.[
]
See also
* Confederate Memorial Day
Confederate Memorial Day (called Confederate Heroes Day in Texas and Florida, and Confederate Decoration Day in Tennessee) is a cultural holiday observed in several Southern U.S. states on various dates since the end of the American Civil War. ...
, also contested
* , documenting similar removals and name changes
* List of Confederate monuments and memorials
* List of monument and memorial controversies in the United States
* List of monuments and memorials removed during the George Floyd protests
* List of monuments to African Americans
* List of U.S. Army installations named for Confederate soldiers
* Memorials to Abraham Lincoln
* Memorials to Martin Luther King Jr.
* Modern display of the Confederate battle flag
* Neo-confederate
* The Naming Commission
The Commission on the Naming of Items of the Department of Defense that Commemorate the Confederate States of America or Any Person Who Served Voluntarily with the Confederate States of America, more commonly referred to as The Naming Commissio ...
Notes
References
Further reading (arranged by date)
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Videos
*
*
External links
* , via the official YouTube channel of ''Vice News'' (4 minutes)
Whose Heritage - Public Symbols of the Confederacy
list, map, and resources via the Southern Poverty Law Center
*
{{Authority control
2017 controversies in the United States
2018 controversies in the United States
Charleston church shooting
Confederate States of America monuments and memorials
Removed statues
Lost Cause of the Confederacy
Race-related controversies in the United States
Removed Confederate States of America monuments and memorials,
Sons of Confederate Veterans
United Daughters of the Confederacy