City given two options to move Rebel statue

United Daughters of Confederacy like depiction of soldier where it is, lawyer says

HOT SPRINGS — The city attorney says there are only two legal options available for officials who want to relocate a Confederate statue that sits on private property downtown.

Property owners would have to decide to move the monument, or the city could exercise its power of eminent domain, according to City Attorney Brian Albright.

The monument is privately owned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and depicts an unknown Confederate soldier. It sits in Confederate Memorial Park, where two black men were reportedly lynched in the early 1900s.

The United Daughters of the Confederacy said it has no plans to move the monuments, and city officials have said they aren’t exploring other options for removing the statue.

The latest effort to relocate the statue comes on the heels of national protests after the death of George Floyd.

Floyd, a black man, died May 25 while in custody of the Minneapolis police after a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, pinned him to the ground by kneeling on Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes.

Widespread video footage of the incident has led to protests nationwide over the treatment of black people and has resulted in many Confederate monuments being damaged or taken down.

Some were taken down as part of protests. That is the case with the statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis that was toppled Wednesday night in Richmond, Va.

Others have been removed by authorities, including an obelisk in Birmingham, Ala., a likeness of a Confederate naval officer in Mobile, Ala., and a 176-year-old slave auction block in Fredericksburg, Va.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., also is calling to have statues of Confederates removed from the U.S. Capitol National Statuary Hall collection. At least 12 figures in the collection honor men who gave their allegiance to the Confederate States of America during the Civil War.

The Hot Springs Confederate Monument, made by McNeel Marble Co. of Marietta, Ga., in the early 1930s, has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1996.

According to the National Register nomination form, the statue was dedicated June 2, 1934, and was the result of a nearly 30-year effort by Hot Springs Chapter No. 80 of the United Daughters of the Confederacy to put a Confederate memorial in Hot Springs, which at the time was the only major city in Arkansas without one.

Earlier this week, City Manager Bill Burrough said the city isn’t exploring “other options” after the United Daughters of the Confederacy declined to meet with him about the possibility of relocating the statue.

Over the years, the United Daughters of the Confederacy has resisted repeated efforts to have it moved.

Currently, a petition for the statue’s removal is circulating online.

Steve Westerfield, an attorney for the United Daughters of the Confederacy, said he can understand why the black community may not want to honor the statue. “Black folks were just on the wrong end of the stick all that time,” he said.

But Westerfield said the group isn’t out to offend anyone.

“I think the UDC, they don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings and they don’t want to offend anyone, but they feel and they’re certain they’re doing the right thing by their ancestors to keep alive the memory of what their ancestors did and experienced,” he said. “And their ancestors weren’t doing anything to hurt black people. … So they’re not meaning it to be [an] offense to anybody.”

Westerfield said the organization has taken good care of the property and noted that the statue is a “unique piece of architecture.”

“They’re proud of what their grandfathers and great-grandfathers did to defend the state, and certainly don’t want to give anybody offense, but sometimes just existing gives people offense,” he said.

Elmer Beard, secretary for the Hot Springs chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Unit 6013, said the NAACP’s petition to get the monument removed has been ongoing since 2001.

“We disdain and oppose any more tax dollars being spent by the city of Hot Springs to protect a Confederate statue and a Confederate flag on private property,” Beard said. “It is still a reflection of hanging and white supremacy and slavery.”

Beard said tax dollars were spent to protect the statue when the city used law enforcement officers and placed dumpsters around the monument during a 2017 demonstration at Arlington Lawn.

“The city spent, according to public record … between $20,000 and $25,000,” Beard said.

According to a letter Burrough sent to Beard in August 2017, local agencies were notified of a protest that was to be held in downtown Hot

Springs regarding removal of the Confederate monument.

“There were reports that at some point during the rally, the pro-Confederate group planned to march to the Confederate Square,” Burrough said in the letter. “This had the potential to be a flashpoint and the potential for violence and property damage was significant following the Charlottesville [Va.] riots.”

The letter said a “comprehensive operations” plan was developed utilizing the National Park Service, Hot Springs Police Department, Arkansas State Police, Garland County sheriff’s office, Arkansas National Guard and other state agencies.

The plan included isolating the square to avoid the type of deadly riots that occurred Aug. 12, 2017, in Charlottesville, where hundreds of neo-Nazis, skinheads, Ku Klux Klan members and other white nationalists descended in part to protest the city’s decision to remove a monument to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from a park.

Beard said he feels that he owes it to the community to continue efforts to get the statue removed, but he said more help is needed.

“I need more work from leaders in the community, ministers and people who have great security in jobs and have those six digits and live in fine houses,” he said. “It makes me feel indebted. I owe the community this honesty that I’m sharing with you.”

“I owe the community of Hot Springs the stand that I’m taking. I owe the community of Hot Springs this leadership to remove this statue because it is a reflection of hanging, racism and slavery.” Information for this article was contributed by The Associated Press.