Tag Archives: Erasing History

Kentucky town welcomes Confederate memorial moved from Louisville

Members from The Sons of Confederate Veterans stand before a dedication ceremony in Brandenburg, Kentucky, U.S. May 29, 2017 for a Civil War Confederate Soldier Memorial recently removed from the campus of the University of Louisville. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston

By Bryan Woolston

BRANDENBURG, Kentucky (Reuters) – A small Kentucky town gave a formal welcome on Monday to a monument to the Confederate soldiers of the American Civil War, rededicating the controversial structure after the University of Louisville removed it as an unwelcome symbol of slavery.

About 400 people, some dressed in grey replica uniforms and many holding small Confederate battle flags, gathered for the Memorial Day ceremony on a bluff above the Ohio River in Brandenburg, about 40 miles (64 km) southwest of Louisville.

The town embraced the tower at a time when Confederate symbols are being removed across the South as reminders of a legacy of slavery and the racism that underpinned it.

“The way I look at it, it’s part of our history,” Brandenburg Mayor Ronnie Joyner said at the dedication, which included the firing of a Civil War-era cannon. “We need to preserve our history.”

Brandenburg says the riverfront park where it holds a biennial Civil War reenactment was an appropriate setting for what some see as a respectful homage to Kentucky’s fallen.

The monument’s new home is near the spot where a Confederate general in 1863 launched a raid on neighboring Indiana, and Brandenburg hopes the addition will bring more tourists to the town.

“The Civil War is not a popular part of people’s past, but you can’t wipe it out,” said Charles Harper of Louisville, who came to the dedication dressed in Confederate uniform. “Just because you wiped out a reference to the Civil War doesn’t mean you’ve wiped out slavery, doesn’t mean you wipe out racism.”

The 70-foot-tall concrete plinth features an oversized statue of a rebel soldier at its crown, representing one of thousands of Kentuckians who fought with breakaway Southern states in the bloodiest conflict in U.S. history.

Monday’s ceremony, watched by a crowd that was almost exclusively white, marked the end to a year-long saga that began in April 2016 when the University of Louisville announced it would dismantle the monument, erected in 1895.

Students and faculty had long criticized the memorial as a tacit tribute to Confederate cause during the 1861-65 conflict, fought primarily over the issue of slavery.

Last May, a state judge ruled against some Louisville residents and descendants of Confederate soldiers who sued to keep the monument from being moved.

Kentucky was neutral during the Civil War and never joined the Confederacy. But slavery was legal in the commonwealth and many Kentuckians sympathized with the rebel cause and fought on its side.

The drive to remove Confederate statues in the South and elsewhere accelerated after the 2015 murder of nine African-Americans by an avowed white supremacist at an historic South Carolina church. The murders stirred national soul-searching about racism and its symbols.

Soon after the killings, the Confederate battle flag was removed from the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol.

Last week New Orleans dismantled the last of four Confederate statues that stood in the city for decades. The mayor of Baltimore said on Monday that her city was considering following the lead of New Orleans by removing its monuments.

(Additional reporting and writing by Frank McGurty; Editing by Andrew Hay)

New Orleans crews remove second Confederate statue amid protests

A construction crew works to remove a monument of Jefferson Davis in New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S., May 11, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman

By Jonathan Bachman

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – New Orleans authorities dismantled a statue honoring president of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis amid cries by protesters waving Confederate flags and cheers from a group that said the monument glorified racism in the U.S. South.

Police watched the two groups taunt each other early on Thursday as crews used a crane to pluck the 8-foot (2.4 m) bronze statue from the granite pedestal where it had sat for more than a century on a piece of land near an intersection in the Mid-City neighborhood.

“I am here to witness this debacle, taking down this 106-year-old beautiful monument,” said Pierre McGraw, president of the Monumental Task Committee, which restored the statue as one of its first projects 29 years ago. “It hurts a lot.”

Quess Moore said he came out “to celebrate the victory in the battle against white supremacy, particularly in New Orleans.”

Confederacy statues and flags have been removed from public spaces across the United States since 2015, after a white supremacist murdered nine black parishioners at a South Carolina church.

Critics of the monuments say they foster racism by celebrating leaders of the Confederacy in the pro-slavery South during the U.S. Civil War.

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu posted photos on Twitter of the removal of the Jefferson Davis Monument.

“This historic moment is an opportunity to join together as one city and redefine our future,” Landrieu tweeted.

McGraw’s committee rejected that, saying in a statement that the mayor “cannot be inclusive, tolerant, or diverse when he is erasing a very specific and undeniable part of New Orleans’ history.”

A committee member sued on Monday to stop the city from removing a statue of Confederate States Army General P.G.T. Beauregard.

The Davis monument had been frequently vandalized, according to the New Orleans Historical website that showed a photo of the words “slave owner” sprayed in red paint on its base.

The statue will be stored in a city warehouse until a permanent location can be determined, officials said.

The Davis and Beauregard monuments are among four in New Orleans that critics have been pushing to have dismantled. In 2015, the city decided to take them down, and a U.S. appeals court ruled in March that it had the right to proceed.

The first of the monuments was removed last month.

On Sunday, dozens of supporters of the monuments clashed with hundreds of demonstrators near the site of a statue honoring Confederate General Robert E. Lee that is also slated for removal.

(Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Laila Kearney in New York; Editing by Toby Chopra and Lisa Von Ahn)