SPLC Launches Third Edition of its Whose Heritage? report tracking Confederate Memorials and their removals across the U.S.

MONTGOMERY — The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) today released the third edition of its Whose Heritage? report, data, and map, which tracks public symbols of the Confederacy across the United States.

Click here to view the February 1 press briefing.

What’s New in Whose Heritage? 2022

The report shows that more than 2,000 Confederate memorials are still publicly present in the U.S. and 723 of those are monuments. These dehumanizing symbols of pain and oppression continue to serve as backdrops to government buildings and halls of justice, and are prominently placed inside of and around schools, public parks, counties, cities and military property.

• The Whose Heritage? report found that 73 Confederate memorials were renamed, relocated or removed from public spaces in 2021.
   
  • Sixteen (16) of those memorials were Confederate monuments
     
  • By the end of 2021, Virginia remained the leader in removing Confederate memorials (20) followed by Texas (15) and Florida (7)
     
  • 2021 saw the most school changes on record. Thirty-three (33) schools were renamed or closed
     
    • Virginia renamed 13 schools, followed by Texas (9) and Florida (6), all of which are located in Jacksonville, FL
  • Twenty-four (24) memorials are pending removal
    • Seven (7) are in Virginia and four (4) are in South Carolina. There are two states that have three memorials pending removal: North Carolina and Alabama
       
    • Nine (9) of the 24 are schools pending renaming
  • Comparatively in 2020: 159 Confederate memorials were removed and 81 of them were Confederate monuments. Twenty (20) schools were also renamed.
• A total of 377 Confederate symbols have been removed, renamed or relocated from public spaces since 2015.

In 2021, the SPLC also found 64 memorials associated with the military and reclassified symbols as “live” because although the statue was removed, the pedestals were not.

To support people who are interested in removing Confederate memorials from spaces in their local communities, the SPLC has also created the Whose Heritage? Report Advocacy Toolkit that includes recommended social media posts and a story about the report that activists can share with their local news organizations for publication. The story includes open spaces where activists can add information about Confederate memorials in their own communities.

The following statement is from SPLC Chief of Staff Lecia Brooks:

“Memorials are most often removed in the wake of a tragedy, as we saw after the Charleston Church massacre in 2015; after Heather Heyer’s death at the Unite the Right Rally in 2017; and after George Floyd’s murder in 2020.

“But in 2021, Americans continued pushing for change and succeeded by removing a record 73 memorials from public spaces. This is the most symbols affected without a tragedy occurring since SPLC started tracking in 2015 and the second highest number of removals in one year since we began tracking.

“Another important supplement to the third edition of the Whose Heritage? report is that we have expanded our tracking beyond public space. The general public frequently interacts with these symbols of hate in cemeteries, federally-funded battlefields, private schools, museums, parks, and even churches. Just like the memorials that occupy public space, their inscriptions promote lies that tout the honoree as a hero. The truth is these men fought to enslave an entire race of Black Americans for personal gain and profit.

“It is the SPLC’s hope that our Whose Heritage? database and map continue to encourage Americans to work towards removing symbols of hate not only as a reaction to a tragedy, but because Confederate memorials venerate the white supremacist values of the Confederacy and have no place in public space.”

Background on the Whose Heritage? Report

After learning that nine Black people were killed during a Bible study at Mother Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C. by a gunman that was radicalized by white supremacist websites, the SPLC began to catalogue all of the Confederate symbols in public spaces across the country.

If you know of a Confederate symbol in your area or would like to share an update, please send an email to confederateupdates@splcenter.org.

The Whose Heritage? Action Guide helps communities take action to remove symbols of the Confederacy from public places.

Lecia Brooks is available for print, radio and broadcast interviews. To arrange an interview, please contact Kimberly Allen at kimberly.allen@splcenter.org or (470) 582-6714.

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