JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Crews eliminated a Confederate monument from a Jacksonville, Florida, park Wednesday morning following years of public controversy.
Mayor Donna Deegan ordered the elimination of the “Tribute to the Women of the Southern Confederacy” monument, which has been in Springfield Park since 1915. She stated the choice isn’t an try and erase historical past however to indicate that folks have realized from it.
“Symbols matter. They tell the world what we stand for and what we aspire to be,” Deegan stated in an announcement. “By removing the confederate monument from Springfield Park, we signal a belief in our shared humanity. That we are all created equal. The same flesh and bones. The same blood running through our veins. The same heart and soul.”
Serious dialogue of the monument’s destiny started in 2020 after Deegan‘s predecessor, Mayor Lenny Curry, ordered the removal of another monument, a bronze statue of a Confederate soldier that had been in a downtown park for more than 100 years. The move came weeks after the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer and on the heels of marches and other calls for social justice.
A proposal to remove the Confederate women tribute was introduced to the Jacksonville City Council in 2021, but the Republican-controlled board never moved on it. Earlier this month, Jacksonville’s Office of General Counsel decided that metropolis council approval was pointless as a result of metropolis funds weren’t getting used for the work. As town’s prime govt, Deegan, a Democrat, had the authority to order the statue’s elimination, metropolis attorneys stated. The $187,000 invoice is being lined by a grant that the Jessie Ball duPont Fund and nameless donors made to 904WARD, metropolis officers stated.
Florida Rep. Dean Black, who’s chair of the Republican Party of Duval County, posted on social media that the monument’s elimination was a shocking abuse of energy.
“This action, undertaken in the middle of the night, during the holidays, without consultation of city leaders or a vote by the council, is another in a long line of woke Democrats obsession with Cancel Culture and tearing down history,” Black stated.
The monument will stay in metropolis storage till members of the neighborhood and town council can decide what to do with it, officers stated.
