GEORGIA: Sons of Confederate Veterans Hire Lobbying Firm
DECATUR, Ga. — The Georgia division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans has signaled it intends to fight efforts to remove Confederate monuments in local communities during the 2018 session.
The group announced that, “The Georgia Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans is moving forward with many initiatives for the up-coming 2018 Legislative session that begins in January. We recently hired a professional Lobbyist Firm to represent us at the State Capital and we are moving forward with a big public outreach campaign.”
After the Stand With Charlottesville candlelight vigil on August 13. 2017, in Decatur, Ga., attendees gather to discuss the controversial “Lost Cause” monument in Decatur Square.
The announcement doesn’t reference the Confederate monument controversy in Decatur. State Sen. Elena Parent and state Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver are both planning to introduce legislation that would give local governments control over such monuments. Currently state law prohibits their removal.
DeKalb County Commissioners recently approved a resolution calling for the removal of a monument in the Decatur Square. The monument is located by the old DeKalb County courthouse and was constructed in 1908. It is widely seen as a symbol of the Jim Crow era south, a not-so subtle message to black residents who would question the status quo.
The resolution, introduced by DeKalb County Commissioner Mereda Davis Johnson, calls for the monument’s removal and also directs the county’s attorney to find out who actually owns it. The monument is located in front of the old courthouse in the Decatur Square. The city of Decatur maintains the county owns it. County officials have been unable to find any commission minutes that show the county formally accepted the monument.
The County Commission’s action follows a similar resolution approved unanimously by the Decatur City Commission.
Activists have demanded the monument’s removal in the wake of a violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. that resulted in the deaths of three people. These groups held a rally and a discussion in the city’s downtown to support removing it. The monument has also been defaced three times since the debate began.
–decaturish.com
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SOUTH CAROLINA: Secessionist Party Plans Protest With African-American Confederate Activist
COLUMBIA — The S.C. Secessionist Party is teaming up with an African-American Confederate activist for a protest Saturday over the lack of recognition for black Southern soldiers at the Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum.
They also want the final Confederate battle flag that was removed from the Statehouse grounds in 2015 put on public display during the rally from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. at the S.C. State Museum. The Relic Room is a separate museum inside the State Museum off Gervais Street near the Congaree River.
Arlene Barnum, right, watches as Braxton Spivey raises a Confederate flag on the grounds of the South Carolina Statehouse on July 10, 2017, in Columbia. The South Carolina Secessionist Party sponsored the event to commemorate the day the flag was removed from the front lawn of the state capitol. The Secessionist Party says it will raise the flag every July 10th so a year will never go by without the Confederate flag flying. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)
The issue over the role African-Americans played in fighting for the South during the Civil War arose last month when two S.C. lawmakers proposed adding a monument honoring black Confederate soldiers at the Statehouse. The proposal was met with criticism, especially from backers of a proposed Statehouse monument to Robert Smalls, an escaped slave who became a Union war hero and congressman.
Arlene Barnum, an activist from Oklahoma who has fought against removal of Confederate monuments, said she is coming to South Carolina this weekend because she was upset after a July visit to the Confederate Relic Room that the museum did not feature prominently the role blacks played in fighting for the South.
“They are being wiped out of history,” Barnum said of black Confederate veterans, adding she did not think the Relic Room was “Confederate enough.”
Informed that historians consider many blacks in the Confederate Army were forced into service because they were slaves, S.C. Secessionist Party leader James Bessenger compared it to the military draft.
“We shouldn’t be dishonoring any soldier whether they served voluntarily or involuntarily,” said Bessenger, whose group re-raises the Confederate flag at the Statehouse on the anniversary of its removal and stands along the Charleston Battery on many Sundays.
The Relic Room displays a watch from William Rose, a servant for Confederate Gen. Maxcy Gregg, museum director Allen Roberson said. He is unaware of the Relic Room having any other artifacts belonging to black Confederate soldiers.
State and federal records reportedly list about 350 S.C. African-Americans recorded as serving in Confederate units or filing post-war pension applications. The black veterans are listed as musicians, cooks, laborers and servants.
Meanwhile, Barnum and Bessenger said it’s time for the Confederate flag removed by the Legislature after the 2015 Charleston church massacre to be displayed at the Relic Room as required by law.
The Relic Room Commission still is working on a proposal to display the flag, Roberson said. Previous proposals, priced at $3 million to $5 million, have been rejected for being too costly.
Roberson said he considering new display proposals but was not ready to discuss them Monday. The Relic Room does not have space on its walls to just hang the banner removed from the Statehouse grounds during a formal ceremony two years ago.
“We’re still working on things,” Roberson said.
–postandcourier.com
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