In the wake of the Charleston church shooting in June 2015, several municipalities in the United States removed monuments and memorials on public property dedicated to the Confederate States of America. The momentum accelerated in August 2017 after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The removals were driven by the belief that the monuments glorify white supremacy and memorialize a government whose founding principle was the perpetuation and expansion of slavery. Many of those who object to the removals claim that the artifacts are part of the cultural heritage of the United States.
The vast majority of these Confederate monuments were built during the Jim Crow Era (1877-1954) and the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1954-1968) era as a means of intimidating African Americans and reaffirming white supremacy. The monuments have thus become highly politicized; according to Eleanor Harvey, a senior curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and a scholar of Civil War history: "If white nationalists and neo-Nazis are now claiming this as part of their heritage, they have essentially co-opted those images and those statues beyond any capacity to neutralize them again". According to Stan Deaton, senior historian at the Georgia Historical Society, "These laws are the Old South imposing its moral and its political views on us forever more. This is what led to the Civil War, and it still divides us as a country. We have competing visions not only about the future but about the past."
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Background
Many of the Confederate monuments concerned were built in periods of racial conflict, such as when Jim Crow laws were being introduced in the late 19th century and at the start of the 20th century or during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. These two periods also coincided with the 50th anniversary and the American Civil War Centennial. 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, in many cases the purpose of the monuments was not to celebrate the past but rather to promote a "white supremacist future". Another historian, Karyn Cox, from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 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, 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, stated in National Geographic: "They're 20th-century artifacts in the sense that a lot of it had to do with a vision of national unity that embraced Southerners as well as Northerners, but importantly still excluded black people."
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Academic commentary
In an August 2017 statement on the monuments controversy, the American Historical Association (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 noted 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."
According to historian Adam Goodheart, the statues were meant to be symbols of white supremacy and the rallying around them by white supremacists will likely hasten their demise. Elijah Anderson, a professor of sociology at Yale University, said the statues "really impacts the psyche of black people." Harold Holzer, the director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, agreed that the statues were designed to belittle African Americans. Dell Upton, chair of the Department of Art History at the University of California, Los Angeles, 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, 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 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, "White supremacy is really what these statues represent."
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.
Eric Foner, a historian of the Civil War and biographer of Lincoln, argued that more statues of African-Americans like Nat Turner should be constructed. 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.
History of removals
The removals were marked by events in Louisiana and Virginia within the span of two years. In Louisiana, after the Charleston church shooting of 2015, the city of New Orleans removed its Confederate memorials two years later. A few months later, in August 2017, a state of emergency was declared in Virginia after a Unite the Right rally against the removal of the Robert Edward Lee statue in Charlottesville turned violent.
Other events followed across the United States. In Baltimore, for example, the city's Confederate statues were removed on the night of August 15-16, 2017. Mayor Catherine Pugh said that she ordered the overnight removals to preserve public safety. Similarly, in Lexington, Kentucky, Mayor Jim Gray asked the city council on August 16, 2017 to approve the relocation of two statues from a courthouse. A different event occurred in Durham, North Carolina, where several protesters toppled the Confederate Soldiers Monument outside the Old Durham County Courthouse on August 15, 2017. Eight activists were arrested in connection with the illegal action.
Laws hindering removals
In Alabama (2017), Georgia (early 20th century), Mississippi (2004), North Carolina (2015), South Carolina (2000), Tennessee (2016), and Virginia (1902), state laws impede or prohibit the removal or alteration of monuments. Attempts to repeal these laws have not yet (2017) been successful. Alabama's law, the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act, was passed in May 2017, North Carolina's law in 2015. Tennessee passed its Tennessee Heritage Protection Act in 2016; it requires a 2/3 majority of the Tennessee Historical Commission to rename, remove, or relocate any public statue, monument, or memorial.
The removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina capitol required a 2/3 vote of both houses of the legislature.
Public opinion
A 2017 Reuters 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. The results were split along racial and political lines, with Republicans and whites preferring to keep the monuments in place, while Democrats and minorities preferring their removal. Another 2017 poll, by HuffPost/YouGov, found that 33% of respondents favored removal while 48% were opposed, with roughly 18% unsure about removal.
Removed monuments and memorials
Alabama
- Birmingham
- In August 2017, immediately after William A. Bell, the mayor of Birmingham, draped a Confederate memorial with plastic and surrounded it with plywood with the rationale "This country should in no way tolerate the hate that the KKK [Ku Klux Klan], neo-Nazis, fascists and other hate groups spew", Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall sued Bell and the city for violating a new (2017) state law that prohibits the "relocation, removal, alteration, or other disturbance of any monument on public property that has been in place for 40 years or more".
- Demopolis
- 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.
Arkansas
- Fort Smith:
- Southside High School: Until 2016, the school nickname was the Rebels. Its mascot was Johnny Reb, a fictional personification of a Confederate soldier. The school also discontinued the use of "Dixie" as its fight song.
- Little Rock:
- Confederate Boulevard was renamed to Springer Boulevard in 2015. The new name honors an African-American family prominent in the area since the Civil War.
California
- Long Beach
- Robert E. Lee Elementary School. Renamed Olivia Herrera Elementary School on August 1, 2016.
- Los Angeles
- Confederate Monument, Hollywood Forever Cemetery. "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.
- San Diego
- Robert E. Lee Elementary School, established 1959. Renamed Pacific View Leadership Elementary School on May 22, 2016.
- Markers of the Jefferson Davis Highway, installed in Horton Plaza in 1926 and moved to the western sidewalk of the plaza following a 2016 renovation. Following the Charlottesville terror attack in Virginia, the San Diego City Council removed the plaque on August 16, 2017.
- San Lorenzo:
- San Lorenzo High School. 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.
- Quartz Hill:
- Quartz Hill High School. 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.
District of Columbia
- U.S. Capitol, National Statuary Hall Collection: Alabama's statue of Confederate officer Jabez Curry was replaced by a statue of Helen Keller in 2009.
- In 2017, Washington National Cathedral removed stained glass windows honoring Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. In 2016, it had removed the small Confederate flags in those windows.
Florida
An August, 2017 meeting of the Florida League of Mayors was devoted to the topic of what to do with Civil War monuments.
- Bradenton
- On August 22, 2017, the Manatee County Commission voted 4-3 to move the Confederate monument in front of the county courthouse to storage.
- Daytona Beach
- In August 2017, the Daytona Beach city manager made the decision to remove three plaques from Riverfront Park that honored Confederate veterans.
- Gainesville
- Confederate monument called "Old Joe", Alachua County courthouse lawn, unveiled January 20, 1904. Removed from government land to a private cemetery in 2017, with participation of the Daughters of the Confederacy.
- Orlando
- Confederate "Johnny Reb" monument, Lake Eola Park. Erected in 1911 on Magnolia Avenue; moved to Lake Eola Park in 1917. Removed from the park to a private location in 2017.
- St. Petersburg
- Marker for the Stonewall Jackson Memorial Highway erected on January 22, 1939, was removed on August 15, 2017.
- Tampa
- In 1997, county commissioners removed the Confederate flag from the Hillsborough County seal. In a compromise, they voted to hang a version of the flag in the county center. Commissioners voted in 2015 to remove that flag. In 2007 the county stopped honoring Confederate History Month.
- In June 2017, the Hillsborough County School Board started a review of how to change the name of Robert E. Lee Elementary School in east Tampa.
- The Hillsborough County Board of Commissioners in July 2017, voted to remove the Memoria in Aeterna (Eternal Memory) monument, erected in 1911 at Franklin and Lafayette Streets and moved to its current location, in front of the then-new county courthouse, in 1952.
- Tallahassee
- Flag of the Confederacy removed from Senate seal, displayed in its chambers and on the Senate letterhead. Decided to remove August 19, 2015, new shield in place 2016.
- The State Senate Seal included the Confederate Battle Flag from 1972 to 2016. The Senate voted in October 2015 to replace the confederate symbol with the Florida State Flag in the wake of the racially motivated Charleston shootings.
- The Confederate Stainless Banner flag flew over the west entrance of the Florida State Capitol from 1978 until 2001, when Gov. Jeb Bush ordered it removed.
- West Palm Beach
- 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, had not claimed it despite notification. "Believed by local historians to be the last Confederate monument in Palm Beach County."
Georgia
- Athens:
- A portrait of Robert E. Lee was removed from a building on the campus of the University of Georgia by the Demosthenian Literary Society.
- Confederate Memorial Day:
- Georgia removed the Confederate reference in 2015. The last Monday in April is now known as "State Holiday."
Kansas
- Lyon County
- Between 1855 and 1862, Lyon County was known as Breckinridge County, named for John C. Breckinridge, U.S. Vice President and Confederate general.
- 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
- Florence:
- Boone County High School. 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.
- Louisville
- The Confederate Monument in Louisville statue was dedicated in 1895 and was placed next to the University of Louisville on city property. It was removed and re-located to a riverfront park in Brandenburg, Kentucky in December 2016.
- Lexington
- Lexington Mayor Jim Gray proposed the removal of two public statues commemorating John Hunt Morgan and John C. Breckinridge. The city council approved the removal on August 17, 2017, giving the mayor 30 days to determine a new location. They were removed on October 17, 2017 and will be placed in storage pending completion of an agreement to re-locate the statues to Lexington Cemetery.
Louisiana
To comply with a 2015 City Council order, New Orleans removed statues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis; Gen. Robert E. Lee, who resigned his U.S Army commission at the time of Virginia's secession and accepted command of the state's military forces; Gen. Pierre G.T. Beauregard, who oversaw the Battle of Fort Sumter; and the Battle of Liberty Place Monument. 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." "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."
- New Orleans
- Battle of Liberty Place Monument - erected 1891 to commemorate the Reconstruction-era Battle of Liberty Place. 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 - erected in 1911. Removed May 11, 2017.
- General Beauregard Equestrian Statue - erected in 1913. Removed May 17, 2017.
- Robert E. Lee monument - erected in 1884. Statue atop a 60-foot (18 m) column with 12-foot (3.7 m) on an earthen mound. Statue removed May 19, 2017.
Maine
- Brunswick, Maine
- Confederate plaque, Bowdoin College. Installed in 1965, removed in August 2017.
Maryland
- Annapolis
- Statue of Chief Justice of the United States Roger Taney, Maryland State House grounds (1872). Taney remained loyal to the Union, and as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, administered the oath of office to Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States. Taney remained Chief Justice until his death in 1864. However, he was the author of the pro-slavery Dred Scott decision, leading up to the Civil War. Monuments to him are being removed at the same time, and for the same reasons, as Confederate monuments. Removed August 18, 2017. Like the Baltimore monuments removed two days before, it was removed in the dead of night, under police guard.
- Baltimore
- Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument (Spirit of the Confederacy), Mount Royal Avenue. Defaced with red paint August 13, 2017. In 2015, defaced with yellow paint saying "black lives matter". Removed August 16, 2017.
- Confederate Women's Monument. Charles Street and University Parkway. Removed August 16, 2017.
- Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson 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. Removed August 16, 2017.
- Roger B. Taney (sculpture). A recasting (copy) of the Annapolis statue (1879). Removed August 16, 2017.
- Ellicott City, Howard County
- Howard County Courthouse Confederate Monument. Dedicated in 1948. Removed on August 22, 2017.
- Frederick
- Statue of Roger B. Taney, removed August, 2017.
- Rockville
- Confederate Monument. The monument was removed in July 2017 from its original location outside the Rockville Court House to private land. The monument was originally donated in 1913.
Massachusetts
- Fort Warren, Georges Island, Boston Harbor:
- Memorial to 13 Confederate prisoners who died in captivity. Dedicated in 1963; Removed October 2017.
Mississippi
- Jackson
- Davis Magnet IB School. Renamed "Barack Obama Magnet IB School" in 2017.
Missouri
- 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 defaced by graffiti on Aug. 18 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, removed in June 2017 from Forest Park, awaits a new home outside St. Louis City and County limits (per agreement between the city and Missouri Civil War Museum in Jefferson Barracks).
Montana
- Helena
- Confederate Memorial Fountain (1916). City Council voted August 17, 2017 to remove it. It was removed on August 18, 2017.
Nevada
- Paradise:
- 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.
New York
- New York City
- 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 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 and Robert E. Lee are in the Hall of Fame for Great Americans at Bronx Community College. New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo has ordered their removal.
- Brooklyn
North Carolina
A state law, the Historic Artifact Management and Patriotism Act (2015), prevents local governments from removing or relocating monuments without state permission. In 2017 Governor Roy Cooper 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." He also asked the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources to "determine the cost and logistics of removing Confederate monuments from state property."
- 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.
- Durham
- The Old Durham County Courthouse statue was pulled down by protesters on August 14, 2017. Seven alleged perpetrators were later arrested and charged with property destruction and "inciting a riot." The monument is being stored in a county warehouse.
- After vandalism, the statue of Robert E. Lee was removed from the chapel at Duke University August 19, 2017.
- 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.
Ohio
- Franklin
- Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee roadside plaque. Removed August 16-17, 2017.
- Columbus: Camp Chase Cemetery's Confederate Soldier Memorial. Dedicated in 1902.
- The statue on top was toppled and decapitated by vandals on August 22, 2017. A federal agency plans to repair the bronze statue.
- Worthington:
- An Ohio state historical marker outside the home where CSA Brigadier General Roswell S. Ripley was born was removed August 18, 2017.
- 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.
South Carolina
- Columbia
- The Confederate flag was raised over the South Carolina statehouse in 1962. In 2000 the legislature voted to remove it and replace it with a flag on a flagpole in front of the Capitol. In 2015 the complete removal was approved by the required 2/3 majority of both houses of the Legislature.
- Rock Hill
- In 2017, the Confederate flag and pictures of Jackson and Lee were removed from the York County courthouse.
Tennessee
- Memphis
- The City of Memphis is seeking to remove a statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general, from a city park, but needs approval from a state agency.
- Three Confederate-themed city parks were "hurriedly renamed" prior to enactment of the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act of 2013. Confederate Park (1908) was renamed Memphis Park; Jefferson Davis Park was renamed Mississippi River Park; and Nathan Bedford Forrest Park was renamed Health Sciences Park.
- Nashville
- 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.
Texas
- Arlington:
- Six Flags Over Texas theme park: In August 2017 it removed the Stars and Bars Confederate Flag after flying it for 56 years along with the flags of the other countries that Texas has been part of. In the 1990s the park renamed the Confederacy section the Old South section and removed all Confederate Battle Flags.
- Austin:
- Robert E. Lee Elementary School (1939) was renamed for local 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.
- University of Texas
- In 2015, a statue of Jefferson Davis from the university's Mall was moved to a museum. SCV unsuccessfully fought this move in court. They likened the move to the destruction of cultural heritage by ISIL while the University President Gregory L. Fenves said "it is not in the university's best interest to continue commemorating him [Davis] on our Main Mall."
- After the removal of the Jefferson Davis statue in 2015 there were three remaining Confederate statues left on the South Mall at the University of Texas, portraying Generals Robert E. Lee and Albert Sidney Johnston, and Confederate Postmaster 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 relocated them to a museum. The decision was inspired by the protests in Charlottesville, VA.
- Dallas:
- In 2016, the John B. Hood Middle School renamed itself, with the concurrence of the Dallas Independent School District Board of Trustees, the Piedmont Global Academy.
- Robert E. Lee Statue (1936) located in Lee Park along Turtle Creek Boulevard. Dedicated in 1936 to celebrate the Texas Centennial Exposition. Removed September 14, 2017 after the city council voted 13-1 to remove it.
- Robert E. Lee Park: The park was temporarily renamed "Oak Lawn Park" until a permanent name can be approved.
- 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.
- 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 changed the nickname of its athletic teams from the "Rebels" to the "Huskies."
- San Antonio:
- Confederate Soldiers' Monument, dedicated April 28, 1899, located in Travis Park next to 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.
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 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 lead two successful efforts to defeat the school budget in public votes as a protest. The students choose the "Wolves" and rebranding is proceeding.
Virginia
- Alexandria:
- Christ Church announced that it is removing plaques to Robert E. Lee and George Washington, both of whom were parishioners. The plaques have hung on either side of the altar since 1870. They will be removed in 2018, after a new location of "respectful prominence" is identified for them. The vote of the church board to remove them was unanimous.
- Bailey's Crossroads:
- J. E. B. Stuart High School (1958), named for Confederate general J. E. B. Stuart. Following protests by students and alumni that began in June 2015, the school board voted in July 2017 to rename the school "Justice High" by the beginning of the 2019 school year.
- Charlottesville
- Lee Park, the setting for an equestrian statue of Robert Edward Lee, was renamed Emancipation Park on February 6, 2017.
- On February 6, the Charlottesville City Council also voted to remove the equestrian statue of Lee. In April, the City Council voted to sell the statue. In May a six-month court injunction staying the removal was issued as a result of legal action by the Sons of Confederate Veterans and others. In June 2016 the pedestal had been spray painted with the words "Black Lives Matter", 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.
- On September 6, 2017, the city council voted to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson from Emancipation Park.
- Jackson Park, named for Stonewall Jackson, was renamed Justice 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."
- 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.
- 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 Confederacy had previously been flown on city light poles to commemorate the Virginia holiday Lee-Jackson Day, which is observed on the Friday before Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. About 300 Confederate flag supporters, including members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, 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. Lexington, for whom its Confederate past and monuments are an embarrassment, tried to prevent individuals from flying Confederate flags on their own property, but a 1993 federal injunction blocked this.
- 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, 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.
- Lynchburg
- A statue of Confederate veteran George Morgan Jones was removed from the Randolph College grounds on August 25, 2017.
Washington (state)
- Blaine and Vancouver:
- Stone markers at both ends of the state designating Highway 99 the "Jeff Davis Highway" were erected in the 1930s by the Daughters of the Confederacy, with State approval. They were 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. Markers are now at Jefferson Davis Park operated by the Sons of Confederate Veterans just outside Ridgefield right beside I-5. Clark County Historic Preservation Commission voted to remove the granite highway marker from its local heritage list on October 2, 2017, with all commissioners in attendance in favor of the motion.
- 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.
- Seattle:
- Robert E. Lee Tree, was one of many trees in Seattle's Ravenna Park, dedicated to persons of note. The tree along with the plaque were removed in 1926.
West Virginia
- Charleston: Stonewall Jackson High School, opened 1940, closed 1989, when it consolidated with Charleston High School to become Capital High School.
Wisconsin
- Madison
- Confederate Rest section of Forest Hill Cemetery. This section of the cemetery contains the remains of more than 100 Confederate soldiers who died as prisoners of war at nearby Camp Randall.
- In 2015, a flag pole was removed from the section. The pole had been used to fly the Confederate flag for one week around Memorial Day.
- On August 17, 2017, a plaque dedicated to the buried confederate soldiers was removed on the order of Madison mayor Paul Soglin. A larger stone monument listing the names of the deceased was also ordered to be removed, but the removal was postponed until logistics could be worked out.
- Confederate Rest section of Forest Hill Cemetery. This section of the cemetery contains the remains of more than 100 Confederate soldiers who died as prisoners of war at nearby Camp Randall.
Canada
- A plaque in a Montreal Hudson's Bay Company store commemorating Jefferson Davis' brief stay in the city was installed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1957; it was removed following the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally of August, 2017, under pressure from the public.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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