In Birmingham, in Lexington, in Alexandria, they’re coming down.
Monuments memorializing the Civil War and other parts of our racial history are coming down in various states as leaders capitalize on a moment of heightened sensitivity to what such monuments mean to many people.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear reiterated his desire to remove the statue of Jefferson Davis that stands inside the state Capitol.
“To me, it never had a place in a rotunda that is supposed to honor people,” Beshear said in a Monday news conference.
Elsewhere in the Bluegrass State, University of Kentucky President Eli Capilouto informed his student body that a mural in the campus’s Memorial Hall, which portrays the history of Kentucky and includes paintings of African slaves, will be coming down.
“We have not been immune from racial prejudice and hate, but I believe deeply that there is a commitment to doing better tomorrow than we are doing today,” Capilouto wrote in an email to students.
“It’s against that imperfect and human backdrop that I am directing our facilities team to immediately begin the process of removing the mural in Memorial Hall,” he said.
At the University of Alabama, the Board of Trustees and university President Dr. Stuart Bell agreed to remove from campus three plaques memorializing students who fought for the Confederate Army.
In Birmingham, Mayor Randall Woodfin promised protesters that he would order a Confederate memorial to be removed, and it was, despite state Attorney General Steve Marshall threatening a lawsuit for violation of the Alabama Monument Preservation Act. Marshall sued on June 2.
In Alexandria, Virginia, a statue of a Confederate soldier, which previously stood between two streets, has been taken down.
Louisville and Mobile, Alabama, have witnessed the same.
Conversations about these monuments have been going on for years, but this time, it seems different. Despite litigation in some places, they are coming down much more quickly and with even less public resistance than in previous years.
