Some ‘see heritage, I see oppression.’ Ex-mayor calls for Confederate statue’s removal
A 140-year-old Confederate monument of an anonymous Civil War soldier in downtown Macon served as the backdrop Friday for a news conference organized by a former city mayor who is helping lead a charge to have the statue moved to Rose Hill Cemetery.
The marble statue, completed in the late 1870s — along with another erected around the same time just down Poplar Street from City Hall — has been a subject of controversy in recent years.
Calls for the removal of both monuments have rekindled amid protests in the wake of the death of George Floyd, who died while in police custody in Minnesota last month.
At Friday’s late-morning gathering, which was attended by about a dozen people at the triangular intersection of Cotton Avenue and Second Street, Jack Ellis, a former mayor, said the statue there doesn’t belong “in the center of our city.”
Ellis said “it only makes sense” that the statue be moved to the cemetery at Rose Hill, which includes a hillside of burial plots for Confederate soldiers.
The statue, he said, “represents oppression, it represents pain.”
Though there could be legal hurdles for removing such statues, the former mayor said cities should have the right to decide whether monuments like the ones in question can be taken down or moved.
“We’re not asking to put it in a dungeon. We’re not asking that it be thrown in the Ocmulgee River. We’re not asking that it be desecrated,” Ellis said. “We ask that it be put in its proper place, and that’s Rose Hill Cemetery, where those soldiers are buried and where this belongs because it, too, is dead. This era is dead, dead and gone. Put it in the cemetery where it belongs.”
Ellis lauded a recent move by other organizers who have petitioned to take down the monuments and also asked that civic leaders join the effort to do the same.
State restrictions
Chris Floore, Macon-Bibb County’s assistant to the county manager for public affairs, said that a few weeks back Mayor Robert Reichert asked county attorneys to review Georgia law as it relates to Confederate monuments.
“According to state laws, you can’t take it down,” Floore said. “But you can move it — with a lot of restriction. ... You have to move it to a place of similar prominence. You can’t put it in a cemetery or a museum unless it was located there originally.”
Floore said the county’s lawyers were looking into “what we can do, how can we move it, is it possible?”
He said potential avenues were being explored that include input from residents “on what location would fit our community the best.”
‘A dark part of our history’
At Friday’s news conference, Ellis said the statue represents “a very dark part of our history. ... We’re not trying to erase history. We’re trying to move a very offensive symbol and emblem.”
Asked about a recently-enacted law that may make moving the monuments more difficult, the former mayor said, “I think we’ll win. ... The majority of the people that live in the city happen to be African American. ... We don’t like it. ... Maybe some people see heritage. When I see it, I see oppression.”
There was an effort about three years ago to place the monuments in less-visible spots, but it didn’t attract the attention recent protests have.
Statue moved before
The soldier statue at the foot of Cotton Avenue stood for years at the intersection of Second and Mulberry Streets, about 75 yards from where it is now. It was moved in the mid-1950s to improve traffic flows near the Bibb County Courthouse.
When it was relocated, Civil War-era artifacts from its original construction were found sealed in a copper box in the monument’s base. The materials inside included old newspapers, pictures, city directories, coins and Confederate bonds.
Copies and photos of the items were made and the mementos were returned to the box and placed back inside the monument, where they are believed to remain. Also put in the box in the 1950s was a photocopy of a letter from Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
The letter, dated July 1866, had been sent to the president of Mercer University and was Lee’s acceptance of an honorary law degree.