How Cities Handle Historic Monuments

February 15, 2021

By Nikki Perry

As the largest social justice movement in U.S. history sweeps the country, Georgia’s cities face increasing demands to remove Confederate monuments that glorify an oppressive ideology.

Most Confederate monuments represent the “Lost Cause” vision of the late 1800s and early 1900s, a then-politically correct image of the Southern rebellion as a battle for states’ rights rather than Black enslavement.

“Monuments are never a pure representation of history. They get put up (or taken down) for a multitude of reasons, and historical study is usually only a small component of the dynamic,” said Matthew Pinsker, a renowned Civil War historian at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Penn.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of the Confederate Veterans have installed more than 700 memorials across the South. However, Black heroes, white Southern Unionists, and converted Confederates “have been mostly forgotten on the memorial landscape,” Pinsker said.

“Everyone who is currently debating the merits of preserving Southern history should address what they would be willing to support in the name of diversifying Southern history, because the story of the American South involves a whole lot more than just Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson,” Pinsker said.

The debate is hot in Georgia’s cities, as municipalities navigate difficult conversations in a state that removed the Confederate battle emblem from its flag only 20 years ago.

Difficult Decisions

Georgia law prevents the removal of Confederate monuments with few exceptions. Cities are finding ways to be responsive to their community’s desires without breaking the law.

As tension mounted in the summer of 2020, the 30-foot Confederate monument in Decatur Square was defaced with graffiti and social media rumblings threatened removal by force. The city of Decatur responded to the public outcry by filing a lawsuit for abatement of a nuisance. DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Clarence Seeliger ruled in the city’s favor, and the county legally moved the monument to an undisclosed location on Juneteenth, a day celebrating the emancipation of enslaved people.

“As part of the unrest and frustration that people felt after George Floyd, they pointed to the monument and the fact that it was a very visible reminder of slavery, of Jim Crow,” Decatur Mayor Patti Garrett said. “Even the wording of the monument referred to the ‘covenant race.’ The monument was an offensive reminder of the suppression of Black people in our country.”

Athens-Clarke County Consolidated Government used another legal exception for transportation project impediments to remove a Confederate monument in College Square. Mayor Kelly Girtz recalled a University of Georgia graduate who said she felt hurt every time she passed the monument. Stories like that motivated him to support this move to continue the process of healing deep wounds in the community.

“Monument removal is an important part of a community’s story,” Girtz said. “People rightfully want a lot more than just that. Symbols are important. They can’t be disregarded. But the work has to be accompanied by substantive changes.”

Rather than merely reacting to complaints, Girtz recommends that city officials face the issues head on. If a city removes a monument but avoids the hard conversations about equity and inclusion, they open themselves up to criticism.

“Every community does good to look itself honestly in the mirror,” Girtz said. “To ask, ‘How could we have done better?’ And recognizing there are mistakes in the past, how can we do better now.”

Hard Conversations

Cities have found that opening the floor for a community discussion about monuments, as well as the larger issues of racial inequity, is not as easy as calling a meeting.

Following the death of Ahmaud Arbery, the city of Brunswick hosted public meetings with the goal of an open discussion about how the city could improve the participation, equality and livelihood of residents. However, the overwhelming topic of public comment was a Confederate statue in the city’s historic district, Brunswick Mayor Cornell Harvey said.

The Brunswick City Commission asked a nine-member advisory committee to make a recommendation on the statue’s future. However, the committee became gridlocked in the debate. In November, the commission ultimately voted to remove the monument after other legal challenges throughout the state have been resolved. In the meantime, interpretive markers will be placed by the monument to explain the prevailing ideologies of the period in which the marker was erected.

Though it was a long and intense process, Harvey said that level of community involvement is critical.

“The process of having numerous public meetings allowed many to build enough courage to voice their opinions,” Harvey said. “Some who were too shy to speak at earlier meetings were moved by the words and actions of others to sign-up and partake in the public discussion. In real-time I was able to see the dichotomy of others shift.”

Decatur has hosted community roundtables, virtual forums and panel discussions about equity and racial justice to encourage continued dialogue. Garrett recommends that cities retain a facilitator to lead these conversations.

“Passions run high. Sometimes having someone who can guide and facilitate those conversations can be helpful,” Garrett said.

GMA’s new Equity and Inclusion Division is designed to help cities lead constructive dialogue with residents about these issues. The Equity and Inclusion Commission is preparing to recommend actions that promote the principles of justice, equality and fairness.

This story originally appeared in the January/February 2021 edition of Georgia’s Cities magazine.

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