The Tuskegee Confederate Monument, also known as the Macon County Confederate Memorial and Tuskegee Confederate Memorial, is an outdoor

Confederate Confederacy or confederate may refer to: States or communities * Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities * Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...

memorial in

Tuskegee, Alabama Tuskegee () is a city in Macon County, Alabama, United States. It was founded and laid out in 1833 by General Thomas Simpson Woodward, a Creek War veteran under Andrew Jackson, and made the county seat that year. It was incorporated in 1843. ...

, in the United States. It was erected in 1906 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, ...

to commemorate the Confederate soldiers from

Macon County, Alabama Macon County is a county located in the east central part of the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2020 census, the population was 19,532. Its county seat is Tuskegee. Its name is in honor of Nathaniel Macon, a member of the United States Senat ...

Controversy

The monument is located on land given in 1906 by the county government to the United Daughters of the Confederacy, with the stipulation that it was for the use of whites only. , the town square is still owned by UDC, although the city of Tuskegee maintains it as a public space. When the monument was erected in 1906, the county population was 82%

African-American 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 ensl ...

. Per the

2010 United States Census The United States census of 2010 was the twenty-third United States national census. National Census Day, the reference day used for the census, was April 1, 2010. The census was taken via mail-in citizen self-reporting, with enumerators servi ...

, the city of Tuskegee is 97% African-American. In 1966, after an all-white jury acquitted the admitted killer of

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 o ...

worker Samuel Younge Jr., there was an unsuccessful attempt to tear the monument down; it was defaced with " Black Power" and a yellow stripe down its back. It was vandalized with spray paint in 2015 and on October 11, 2017; after the latest incident the United Daughters of the Confederacy, its owner, decided not to clean it, "out of fear it would only be repeated". In 2015, Mayor Johnny Ford sought to relocate the Confederate statue to the Tuskegee cemetery. According to Dyann Robinson, president of the Tuskegee Historic Preservation Commission, "it would probably take a bomb to get it down". In June 2020, the statue was again vandalized with graffiti. The city covered the base with tarpaulins, and was looking into a way to legally have the statue removed and relocated.

Description

On the front, the monument reads: It has

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 ...

s on both the right and left sides. The rear contains an unidentified shield, the words "Honor the Brave", and in the same size as on the front, "C.S.A." The monument is in Tuskegee Square, in front of the Macon County Courthouse, between North and South Main Streets, West Northside Street/East Rosa Parks Avenue, and Martin Luther King Highway. The square and monument are contributing resources to the Main Street Historic District.

References

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External links

Confederate statue in the town square of Tuskegee, Alabama
Library of Congress 1906 establishments in Alabama 1906 sculptures Buildings and structures in Macon County, Alabama Confederate States of America monuments and memorials in Alabama Outdoor sculptures in Alabama Sculptures of men in Alabama Statues in Alabama Tuskegee, Alabama Vandalized works of art in Alabama

Controversy

Description

See also

References

External links