Last fall, the Florida Senate agreed without objection to strip the Confederate battle flag from its official seal. Today, Florida lawmakers are hearing testimony on a proposal that would go further toward redressing the wounds of slavery: the creation of a Florida Slavery Memorial at the state Capitol.
A federal appeals court has upheld a ruling allowing New Orleans to remove three Confederate monuments in the city – likely resolving the case in which the Southern Poverty Law Center and others filed a legal brief that urged the monuments’ removal and documented their connections to the Confederacy’s legacy of white supremacy.
The public debate over the legacy of the Confederacy in the Deep South came to a boil recently when two organizations –– one an anti-racist group and the other a Confederate heritage group –– got in a permit battle to hold competing marches in Lexington, Va.
A 121-year-old Confederate monument in front of the University of Louisville campus was removed over last weekend, culminating years of debate whether the landmark was historically significant or a reminder of slavery and racial division.
At least 1,500 symbols of the Confederacy can be found in public spaces across the country, mostly in the Deep South, according to a report released today by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Most were put in place during the early decades of Jim Crow or in reaction to the civil rights movement.
Last month, the New Orleans City Council voted to take down four monuments honoring the Confederacy and its heroes, resulting in a federal court challenge by preservation groups and a chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
The Ku Klux Klan, with support from members of various pro-Confederate groups, is planning a protest rally in mid-November in Stone Mountain Park, near Atlanta, at the proposed site of a “Freedom Bell” dedicated to the late Martin Luther King Jr.
The national director of a Ku Klux Klan faction says his group will pay to move a statue and the remains of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest from a university park in Memphis, Tenn., to Arkansas.
As calls continue to mount around the country for the removal of the flag and other monuments to the Confederacy, a major backlash from enthusiasts of the Lost Cause has set in.
Campaign aims to identify and eliminate government-sanctioned symbols honoring the Confederacy. Please send examples in your community.
