Tuskegee Confederate Monument | |
---|---|
Artist | Unknown |
Medium | granite |
Location | Tuskegee, Alabama, U.S. |
32°25.450′N85°41.453′W / 32.424167°N 85.690883°W |
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] The monument is in Tuskegee Square in front of the Macon County Courthouse.
The monument is located on land given in 1906 by the county government to the United Daughters of the Confederacy, with the stipulation that it was for the use of whites only. [4] [5] As of 2018 [update] , the town square is still owned by UDC, [6] although the city of Tuskegee maintains it as a public space. [6]
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 admitted killer of Civil Rights worker Samuel Younge Jr., [5] there was an unsuccessful attempt to tear the monument down; it was defaced with "Black Power" and a yellow stripe down its back. [6] It was vandalized with spray paint in 2015 and on October 11, 2017; [7] 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". [6] [8] In 2015, Mayor Johnny Ford sought to relocate the Confederate statue to the Tuskegee cemetery. [9] According to Dyann Robinson, president of the Tuskegee Historic Preservation Commission, "it would probably take a bomb to get it down". [6]
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. [10]
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."
The monument is in Tuskegee Square, in front of the Macon County Courthouse, between North and South Main Streets, West Northside Street/East Rosa Parks Avenue, and Martin Luther King Highway. The square and monument are contributing resources to the Main Street Historic District. [11]
The John Hunt Morgan Memorial in Lexington, Kentucky, is a monument created during the Jim Crow era, as a tribute to Confederate General John Hunt Morgan, who was from Lexington and is buried in Lexington Cemetery. The monument was originally situated on the Courthouse Lawn at the junction of North Upper and East Main Street, but was moved to Lexington Cemetery in 2018.
The Confederate War Memorial is a memorial to Confederate soldiers located behind the Common Pleas Courthouse in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. It was erected by the Cape Girardeau United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1931. It was moved to its current location in 1995. Beside it is a fountain and statue erected in 1911 by the Women's Relief Corps. This latter Union monument is dedicated "[i]n memory of the soldiers of the Civil War."
The Confederate Monument in Owensboro, Ky., was a 16-foot-tall, two-part object — a 7-foot-tall bronze sculpture atop a 9-foot-tall granite pedestal — located at the southwest corner of the Daviess County Courthouse lawn, at the intersection of Third and Frederica Streets, in Owensboro, Kentucky. Nearly 122 years after the monument was dedicated in September 1900, the monument was dismantled in 2022, beginning with the removal of the sculpture in May 2022; the sculpture was placed in storage, pending a decision on what to do with it.
Confederate monuments and memorials in the United States include public displays and symbols of the Confederate States of America (CSA), Confederate leaders, or Confederate soldiers of the American Civil War. Many monuments and memorials have been or will be removed under great controversy. Part of the commemoration of the American Civil War, these symbols include monuments and statues, flags, holidays and other observances, and the names of schools, roads, parks, bridges, buildings, counties, cities, lakes, dams, military bases, and other public structures. In a December 2018 special report, Smithsonian Magazine stated, "over the past ten years, taxpayers have directed at least $40 million to Confederate monuments—statues, homes, parks, museums, libraries, and cemeteries—and to Confederate heritage organizations."
Appomattox is a bronze statue commemorating soldiers from Alexandria, Virginia, who had died while fighting for the Confederacy during the American Civil War. The memorial was located in the center of the intersection of South Washington Street and Prince Street in the Old Town neighborhood of Alexandria.
Macon County Courthouse is a historic county courthouse in downtown Tuskegee, Alabama, county seat of Macon County, Alabama. A brick courthouse was constructed in the middle of the 19th century, replacing wooden structures used earlier. The current courthouse, an example of Romanesque Revival architecture, was designed by J.W. Golucke and built in 1905. It includes gargoyles. A monument to confederate soldiers is located nearby. The courthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 17, 1978. The courthouse is at 101 East Northside Street.
The Bentonville Confederate Monument was installed in Bentonville, Arkansas, United States. It was removed from the town square in September 2020 and relocated to the private James H. Berry Park in July 2023.
The El Dorado Confederate Monument is located on the grounds of the Union County Courthouse in El Dorado, Arkansas, near the corner of North Main and South Washington Streets. It consists of a statue of a Confederate Army soldier in mid-stride, mounted on top of a temple-like structure supported by four cannon-shaped Ionic columns. The columns support a lintel structure bearing inscriptions on three sides, above which is a tiered roof with cannonballs at the corners. The temple structure is 15 feet (4.6 m) high, and 10 feet (3.0 m) square; the statue measures 76 inches (1.9 m) by 28 inches (0.71 m) by 28 inches (0.71 m). Both the statue and the temple are constructed of gray/blue striated marble.
The Pine Bluff Confederate Monument has long been located in front of the Jefferson County courthouse, at Barraque and Main Streets in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. It depicts a standing Confederate Army soldier, holding a rifle whose butt rests on the ground. The statue, built out of Georgia marble by the McNeel Marble Company, stands on a stone base 15 feet (4.6 m) in height and 10 by 10 feet at the base. It was placed in 1910 by the local chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
The Denton Confederate Soldier Monument was an outdoor Confederate memorial installed in downtown Denton, Texas, in the United States.
There are more than 160 Confederate monuments and memorials to the Confederate States of America and associated figures that have been removed from public spaces in the United States, all but five of which have been since 2015. Some have been removed by state and local governments; others have been torn down by protestors.
The Confederate Soldier Memorial, or Confederate Monument, is located in the Maple Hill Cemetery in Huntsville, Alabama.