Tuskegee Confederate Monument

The Tuskegee Confederate Monument, also known as the Macon County Confederate Memorial and Tuskegee Confederate Memorial,[1][2] is an outdoor Confederate memorial in Tuskegee, Alabama, in the United States. It was erected in 1906 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to commemorate the Confederate soldiers from Macon County, Alabama.[3]

Tuskegee Confederate Monument
The monument in 2010
LocationTuskegee, Alabama, U.S.
Coordinates32°25.450′N 85°41.453′W

Controversy

The monument is located on land given by the county government to the United Daughters of the Confederacy as a "park for white people". As of 2018, the town square is still owned by UDC,[4] although the city of Tuskegee maintains it as a public space.[5]

When the monument was erected in 1906, the county population was 82% African-American. Per the 2010 United States Census, the city of Tuskegee is 97% African-American.

In 1966, after an all-white jury acquitted the killer of Civil Rights worker Samuel Younge Jr., there was an unsuccessful attempt to tear the monument down; it was defaced with "Black Power" and a yellow stripe down its back.[4] It was vandalized with spray paint in 2015 and on October 11, 2017;[6] after the latest incident the United Daughters of the Confederacy, its owner, decided not to clean it, "out of fear it would only be repeated".[4][7] In 2015, Mayor Johnny Ford sought to relocated the Confederate statue to the Tuskegee cemetery.[8] According to Dyann Robinson, president of the Tuskegee Historic Preservation Commission, "it would probably take a bomb to get it down".[4]

In June 2020, the statue was again vandalized with graffiti. The city covered the base with tarpaulins, and was looking into a way to legally have the statue removed and relocated.[9]

Description

On the front, the monument reads:

1861—1865
Erected by the
Daughters of
the Confederacy
to the Confederate
Soldiers of
Macon County
[in larger letters] C.S.A.

It has Confederate flags on both the right and left sides. The rear contains an unidentified shield, the words "Honor the Brave", and in the same size as on the front, "C.S.A."

See also

References
  1. "Macon County Confederate Memorial - Tuskegee, Alabama - American Civil War Monuments and Memorials on Waymarking.com". Waymarking.com. Retrieved 19 August 2017.
  2. "The Tuskegee Confederate Memorial – Abbeville Institute". Abbevilleinstitute.org. Retrieved 19 August 2017.
  3. "Tuskegee Confederate Monument – Tuskegee – Alabama.travel". alabama.travel. Retrieved 19 August 2017.
  4. Associated Press (August 9, 2018). "History shared but unreconciled in city's Confederate statue". Columbia Daily Herald.
  5. Associated Press (August 9, 2018). "Tuskegee's Confederate monument a symbol of a troubled city history". Birmingham News.
  6. Dunigan, Jonece Starr (October 11, 2017). "Confederate statue vandalized in Tuskegee". Birmingham News.
  7. Reeves, Jay (August 10, 2018). "Tuskegee's Confederate statue stands in predominantly black town". Christian Science Monitor.
  8. Henry, Bryan. "Tuskegee mayor wants downtown square owned by Daughters of Confederacy". Wsfa.com. Retrieved 19 August 2017.
  9. Press, The Associated (June 10, 2020). "Macon County, where most are black, looks to protect, safely remove Confederate statue". al.
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