‘Watershed moment’: Will removal of Confederate monuments lead to lasting change in Alabama?

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, during the 2018 campaign, drew criticism from civil rights organizations for running a TV ad embracing a relatively new law protecting Confederate monuments and chastising “out-of-state-liberals” for instructing Alabamians on what it should do with the historical structures.

Two years later, its in-state Democratic and Republican mayors, county commissioners and city officials who are overseeing the removal of monuments that are a national flashpoint since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. He was killed after a white police officer – now charged with murder – held his knee to Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes, as three other officers stood nearby.

Gone are Confederate monuments in Virginia, Indiana, Florida and Tennessee. The Marines and Navy have banned images of Confederacy on military property, and a debate has ensued on whether to rename military bases and installations after Confederate generals. NASCAR, on Wednesday, banned displays of the Confederate battle flag.

Historians and scholars say the timing could be ripe for the 3-year-old Alabama Memorial Preservation Act of 2017, to also come tumbling down. But they also acknowledge that in states controlled by conservative legislatures – where Republicans dominate the halls of state power — laws aimed to protect the Confederate monuments will likely remain in place. In Alabama, there has been a call to strengthen the law – adding stiffer fines for cities or counties that remove the statues.

The tradition of state legislatures dominating local governments in states like Alabama, will also come into play, they say.

“The issue aligns with Republican priorities and values: opposition to pluralism, defense of ‘traditional values’ threated by ‘political correctness,’ etc.,” said Fitzhugh Brundage, the William B. Umstead professor of history at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. “So I think the laws will remain on the books in Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, etc., for the foreseeable future.”

‘Un-democratic’

The laws have been criticized as giving too much authority to state legislatures and leaders to govern monuments in cities where local leaders are combatting vandalism and property destruction from protest movements following Floyd’s brutal killing. According to scholars, the state laws are also “un-democratic” in that they remove decision-making away from local governments.

“The laws have thwarted healthy conversations for communities to deal with their built landscape as a community,” said Hilary Green, associate professor of history in the Department of Gender and Race Studies at the University of Alabama. “They have posed as obstacles and given rise to the frustration seen in the present.”

Said Brundage, “These laws are a rear-guard action to slow and stifle the popular will. Were it not for the 2015 law in North Carolina, I doubt there would be a major Confederate memorial standing in any of the major cities in the state. Although Republicans cannot win control over any of the major cities in this state, they can prevent any change to the commemorative landscapes of those cities through the 2015 law.”

Jess Brown, a retired political science professor at Athens State University, points out that Alabama is a “Dillon’s Rule” state, which means local governments are limited to the powers granted to them by the Legislature.

“This is why the Legislature, from the get-go, was flawed,” said Brown. “Heritage is always going to be different. The subsets of history you want to cheerlead – your heritage – will differentiate from one pocket of the state to the next.”

Toppling monuments

Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia have state laws protecting the Confederate monuments. Virginia, which is a Democratic controlled state, also became the first state to rescind its state-authorized monument protections to allow cities to decide if the monuments should be removed. Starting July 1, localities in Virginia can “remove, contextualize or relocate monuments as they wish.”

Mississippi has a 1972 law in place to protect war memorials, but South Carolina’s Heritage law became the first of the modern wave of Confederate monument protection laws in 2000. Lawmakers approved the law at the same time the Confederate flag was relocated from the Statehouse dome in Columbia to a nearby Confederate memorial.

Alabama is one of a few states that issues a fine per violation. In Alabama, fines of up to $25,000 can be charged per violation for the removal of any monument that is older than 40 years.

“My reading on this situation is that Alabamians have realized that for $25,000, we can get rid of this (monument) and that it’s worth the costs especially when dealing with security and the fact that it attracts controversy and protests which means you have to pay for police to be there,” said Adam Domby, an assistant professor of history at the College of Charleston and author of the recently-released book, “The False Cause: Fraud, Fabrication, and White Supremacy in Confederate Memory.”

He added, “Part of this may be an economic decision in that it’s cheaper to just pay the fine. It’s interesting in that we’re seeing a lot of locations finding ways to get around heritage laws.”

In the aftermath of Floyd’s brutal killing and the rise of the “Black Lives Matter” protests, local government officials are reacting by removing the statues and placing them in safe storage before getting approval from state leaders. The fine seems to be of little concern.

Notable examples in Alabama include:

-In Birmingham, protesters toppled a statue of Confederate officer Charles Linn during a May 31 demonstration and vandalized the 52-foot Confederate Sailors and Soldiers memorial in Linn Park. But before further damage occurred, Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin arrived on the scene and promised to the protesters that the city would remove the monument and pay the $25,000 fine. The next day – on June 1, a state-sanctioned holiday recognizing the birthday of Confederate leader Jefferson Davis – the massive statue was removed. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall filed a civil lawsuit on June 2, saying that Birmingham was on the hook to pay for the fine that would go into the state Historic Preservation Fund.

-In Montgomery, once referred to as the “Cradle of the Confederacy,” protesters on June 1 toppled a statue of Robert E. Lee in front of the high school that is his namesake. Four were arrested and charged with first-degree criminal mischief, a felony, but later the charges were dismissed due to legal errors. Talks also are underway by Montgomery County school officials over the renaming of three schools – Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Sidney Lanier.

-In Mobile, the Confederate Navy Adm. Raphael Semmes statue was removed on June 5 ahead of a protest that was being planned for last weekend in downtown Mobile. The statue’s removal was authorized by Mayor Sandy Stimpson. The statue stood for 120 years at Royal and Government streets, but it’s future at that site is in doubt. Marshall has since requested Stimpson provide a clarification as to why the monument was removed, and whether the removal was temporary. The state law does allow provision for the temporary removal of monuments for preservation purposes and repairs. A Go Fund Me account has been set up to pay for the fine, if one occurs. It has raised over $4,000 as of Thursday morning.

-The University of Alabama System’s board of trustees, with the support of President Stuart Bell, authorized the removal of three plaques honoring students who served in the Confederate Army. The plaques are on and in front of Gorgas Library and they honor members of the student cadet corps who defended the campus during the Civil War. The plaques have been in place since before 1920.

-The Madison County Commission voted Wednesday for the removal of a Confederate statue outside the county courthouse in downtown Huntsville. But unlike Birmingham and Mobile, the Madison County officials voted to pursue the legal channels in getting the monument removed. The unanimous vote of the commissioners moves the issue along to an 11-member committee established by the state law that reviews requests to remove historic structures. The group will have 90 days to render a decision. Outside the courthouse on Wednesday, a representative with the Tennessee Valley Progressives held up a handmade check for $25,000, suggesting they could raise enough money for its removal.

‘Legislative process’

State leaders who have defended the law in the past have been quiet in recent days. Ivey is declining comment, deferring statements to Marshall’s office. State Sen. Gerald Allen, R-Tuscaloosa, who sponsored the state law in 2017, did not respond to requests for comment.

Marshall’s office plans to enforce the state law consistently against all violators, even though he’s received criticism for being more aggressive against Birmingham in pursuing legal recourse than against Mobile. Woodfin, a black mayor of Birmingham, is a Democrat while Stimpson, a white mayor of Mobile, is Republican.

Marshall’s office has since said it will evaluate each case as it arises and take action “in accordance with the law.”

In his letter to Stimpson in the Mobile case, Marshall said “it has been suggested” that the city may be relying on working within the state law that allows a city to take “appropriate measures” to protect and preserve, care, repair or restore the monument. The committee, set up through the 2017 law, adopted administrative rules that will be implemented next week that allow “permissible modifications” to monuments that include “any work” intended for protection, preservation, care, repair or restoration of a monument.

Marshall, during an interview on FM Talk 1065 in Mobile Wednesday, said the law includes a provision that “talks about emergency repairs.” Asked about protecting a monument from potential defacement, he said, “It’s hard to fault a city of protecting something they intend to restore back to its prior place.”

Marshall also acknowledged that movement was afoot in the Legislature this session to strengthen the 2017 law. Under SB127, sponsored by Allen, the fine for violating the state law would be assessed at $10,000 for each day that a violation occurred.

State Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, said there are multiple sides to the dispute over what to do with the law. Republicans, in Alabama, hold a supermajority status in the Legislature.

“Legislators, particularly Senator Allen, are looking to strengthen the act,” said Ward. “Some on the other side want to reverse it and go in the opposite direction. Either way, the legislative process is how it should be dealt with.”

‘Watershed moment’

Steve Flowers, a commentator on state politics who once served as a Republican in the Alabama House, predicted very little will change regarding the 2017 law. “Our Constitution in Alabama gives an inordinate amount of power in the Legislature more so than in other states. It’s archaic that a Legislature can tell cities what to do. But I don’t think they will back off,” he said.

But some scholars are hopeful it will lead to their downfall. The laws have been criticized by historians for protecting monuments that were erected decades after the Civil War as testimonies to white supremacy ahead of the Jim Crow era in an effort to thwart advancements by blacks during Reconstruction in the late 1800s.

“When (defenders of the monuments) say it has nothing to do with racism, they are ignoring what people who were putting them up were saying at the time,” said Domby. “The monuments going up at the turn of the 20th century were a way to celebrate the overturning of Reconstruction and African-American (advances). The cementing, if you will, of Jim Crow.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, in a February 2019 report, noted that 1,747 Confederate symbols still stand in the U.S. That figure is down by 114, which was the number of Confederate symbols removed since the 2015 massacre of nine African Americans inside a church in Charleston, South Carolina. That killing by a deranged white supremacist, sparked the first major nationwide movement to remove Confederate monuments.

But that movement also faced backlash by defenders of the Confederate flag who viewed it as an emblem of heritage and regional pride, resulting in the creation of the 2017 law in Alabama.

Lecia Brooks, outreach coordinator at the SPLC, said she believes protesters at rallies in recent weeks following Floyd’s death are recognizing the Confederate symbols for their underlying purpose: A support of white supremacy.

She said that Alabama lawmakers can take action to rescind the law, “and shift the narrative,” or allow protesters to take action.

“It’s evidence where (protesters) are not going to wait for governments to recognize that these monuments/memorials are a painful part of how the systematic issues (of racism) continue to play out,” said Brooks. “We see this as a real watershed moment in a movement to remove the Confederate iconography from public spaces.”

One question that could surface in the weeks ahead is what will happen to the monuments removed. Domby said that some of the statues are not worth preserving, while others could have value at a park or some sort of venue dedicated to historical artifacts.

“I don’t think it’s a fair argument to say that we’ll put them in a museum,” he said. “Some of these monuments are just artistically unimportant. They are stock monuments and were sold for $500.”

He said museums also don’t have space for the monuments. The Birmingham monument, for instance, is a five-story structure.

“Do museums have the space and how do they interpret them?” said Domby, who suggests some of the statues should be put in storage for the next 20 or so years.

He added, “And in 20 years from now, we can talk about what happened in 2020. But ultimately, it’s up to the people to decide.”