Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials

The removal of Confederate monuments and memorials is an ongoing process in the United States since the 1960s. Many municipalities in the United States have removed monuments and memorials on public property dedicated to the Confederate States of America (CSA), and some, such as Silent Sam in North Carolina, have been torn down by protestors. The momentum to remove Confederate memorials increased dramatically following the high-profile incidents including the Charleston church shooting (2015), the Unite the Right rally (2017), and the killing of George Floyd (2020). The removals have been driven by the belief that the monuments glorify white supremacy, memorialize an unrecognized, treasonous government whose founding principle was the perpetuation of slavery, and that the presence of these Confederate memorials over a hundred years after the subjugation of the Confederacy continues to disenfranchise and alienate African Americans.
The vast majority of these Confederate monuments were built during the era of Jim Crow laws, from 1877 to 1964. Detractors claim that they were not built as memorials but as a means of intimidating African Americans and reaffirming white supremacy after the Civil War. 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". In a counter-reaction to the movement to remove Confederate monuments, some Southern states passed state laws restricting or prohibiting the removal or alteration of public monuments.
As part of the protests that followed the killing of George Floyd in 2020, there was a new wave of removal of Confederate monuments. An Alabama law prohibiting the removal of historical monuments was deliberately broken by the mayor of Birmingham, Alabama, the city council of Anniston, Alabama, and others. The mayor said that the penalty fine was preferable to the unrest that would follow if it were not removed. The Governor of North Carolina 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. The U.S. Army said it would rename Fort Bragg and its other military bases named for Confederate generals. The U.S. Navy and U.S. Marines prohibited the display of the Confederate flag, even as bumper stickers on private cars on base; a wave of corporate product re-branding has also ensued. During the George Floyd protests, the campaign to remove monuments extended to outside the United States; numerous statues and other public works of art related to the transatlantic slave trade and European colonialism around the world were either removed or destroyed.
Background.
Most 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."
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 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, 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 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 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.
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": "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, a historian of the Civil War and biographer of Lincoln, argued that more statues of African Americans like Nat Turner 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 asked: "Why, in the year [2016], 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 [John 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 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.
In the three years since the Charleston shooting, Texas has removed 31 memorials, more than any other state. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, at least 114 Confederate monuments have been 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 where Southern state legislatures have the power to decree removal.
Legal impediment.
In Alabama (2017), Georgia (early 20th century), Mississippi (2004), North Carolina (2015), South Carolina (2000), Tennessee (2013, updated 2016), and Virginia (1902, repealed 2020), state laws have been passed to impede, or in the cases of Alabama, Georgia, and North Carolina prohibit altogether, the removal or alteration of public Confederate monuments. Attempts to repeal these laws have not been successful, except in Virginia. Alabama's law, the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act, was passed in May 2017, North Carolina's law, the Cultural History Artifact Management and Patriotism Act, in 2015.
Tennessee law.
Tennessee passed its Tennessee Heritage Protection Act in 2016; it requires a ⅔ majority of the Tennessee Historical Commission to rename, remove, or relocate any public statue, monument, or memorial. In response to events in Memphis (see below), a 2018 amendment prohibits municipalities from selling or transferring ownership of memorials without a waiver. (The Tennessee Historical Commission has never issued a waiver since it was established in 1919.) The amendment also "allows any entity, group or individual with an interest in a Confederate memorial to seek an injunction to preserve the memorial in question."
According to "The New York Times", the Tennessee act shows "an express intent to prevent municipalities in Tennessee from taking down Confederate memorials." The same has been said about Florida's law.
South Carolina law.
The removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina capitol required a 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 relocation within the property. 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." "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."
After the University of North Carolina renamed Saunders Hall in 2014 (see below), its Board of Trustees prohibited for 16 years any more renamings. In another legal impediment to removal, the Board of Trustees of the University of North Carolina prohibited for 16 years the renaming of any university memorials. This was triggered by the University's 2014 decision to rename Saunders Hall (see below).
In 2019, North Carolina's law prohibiting monument removal was challenged indirectly. The Confederate Soldiers Monument in Winston-Salem was removed as a public nuisance, 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 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.
On January 14, 2019, a circuit judge ruled that the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act 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 9 to 0. 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 U.S. House of Representatives voted 305-113 to remove a bust of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney (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. 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 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: 
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 and the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
In addition, the bust of Robert E. Lee in Fort Myers, Florida, 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.)
Jason Spencer, a white member of the Georgia legislature, told an African-American colleague that if she continued calling for removal of Confederate monuments that 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 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"/YouGov, found that 48% of respondents favored the "remain" option, 33% favored removal, and 18% were unsure. An NPR/"PBS NewsHour"/Marist Poll 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, 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 Soldiers Monument in Durham, North Carolina, the Confederate Women's Monument 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 plinths remain. What to do with them has been the subject of some discussion. In the case of the toppled "Silent Sam" monument at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, two scholars proposed leaving the "empty pedestal — shorn all original images and inscriptions — [which] 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, with eventual city tolerance though not approval, 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... [H]er imposing presence combines maternal nurturing with power. Madre Luz is Gaia, 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).
List of removals.
Arkansas.
In 2017, the Arkansas Legislature 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. Uriah Milton Rose, an attorney and founder of the Rose Law Firm, 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 was also removed. They will be replaced with statues of Johnny Cash and journalist and state NAACP president Daisy L. Gatson Bates, who played a key role in the integration of Little Rock's Central High School in 1957.
Florida.
An August 2017 meeting of the Florida League of Mayors was devoted to the topic of what to do with Civil War monuments.
Tennessee.
The 2016 Tennessee Heritage Protection Act puts "the brakes on cities' and counties' ability to remove monuments or change names of streets and parks."
Worldwide.
As part of the worldwide George Floyd protests, members of the Black Lives Matter movement have also removed or defaced statues of other historical figures that were responsible or alleged of causing suffering or harm against Black people. In Bristol, England, protesters toppled a statue of slave trader Edward Colston, who played a prominent role in the Bristol slave trade, while other protesters in Ghent vandalized a statue of King Leopold II, the ruler of the Congo Free State during atrocities that took place there.