Confederate Monument is taken down in Florida
A Confederate monument was taken down Wednesday in Jacksonville, Florida, after an order from the city’s mayor ended years of debate as officials across the United States consider memorials on public land that commemorate the Confederacy.
Donna Deegan, the Democratic mayor of Jacksonville, ordered the removal of two statues that were part of the Tribute to the Women of the Southern Confederacy monument in Springfield Park.
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, a crowd watched as a construction crew used a crane to remove a statue, depicting a woman in robes carrying a Confederate flag, from the roof of the gazebo where the monument was housed. A second statue, depicting a woman reading to two children, was then removed from a pedestal in the garden shed. The removal took place streamed live on social media.
Ms. Deegan said in a statement on Wednesday that the monument was erected as part of a campaign to promote discriminatory Jim Crow laws and intimidate black people.
The memorial was commissioned by the Florida Division of the United Confederate Veterans, a national organization that promoted the “Lost Cause” myth that the Civil War was a noble struggle for states’ rights.
The statues were erected in 1915, a year after the United Confederate Veterans held an annual reunion in Jacksonville attended by about 8,000 former soldiers. Five months after the reunion, the city renamed the park Confederate Park. In 2020 it was renamed Springfield Park.
Ms Deegan said removing the statues from the gazebo, which will remain standing, was not an attempt to erase history but “to show that we have learned from it.”
“By removing the Confederate monument from Springfield Park, we demonstrate a belief in our shared humanity,” she added.
Discussions about the fate of the statues began in 2020 under previous Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry, a Republican. Confederate monuments have come under renewed scrutiny following the police killing of George Floyd.
Since 2020, hundreds of Confederate memorials have been renamed or removed from federal, state and municipal property. Last week, a federal judge cleared the way for the removal of a Confederate monument from Arlington National Cemetery.
The removal of the Jacksonville monument has drawn criticism from conservatives, including Florida state representative Dean Black, who has filed legislation to prevent cities in the state from removing Confederate and other historical memorials.
On social media, Mr. Black convicted the decision to remove the images as a ‘stunning abuse of power’.
The City Council rejected proposals to remove the tribute to the Women of the Southern Confederacy monument when Mr. Curry was in office. Earlier this month, Jacksonville’s general counsel ruled that Ms. Deegan did not need City Council approval if the statues could be removed without city money.
The $187,000 cost of the removal was paid for with a grant from the Jessie Ball DuPont Fund and anonymous donors, Ms. Deegan said.