Calls growing to remove Confederate monument
As Confederate monuments across the nation are relocated or removed amid protests against systemic racism, Arizona has yet to take any significant action regarding the monument honoring Confederate soldiers outside of the Capitol.
“A nation that forgets its past has no future,” reads the Arizona-shaped stone monument, which faces the
Martin Luther King Jr. memorial on the opposite side of Wesley Bolin plaza.
Gov. Doug Ducey last week said he would like a “public process” to decide the monument’s fate, but has said nothing further since then.
Community leaders and activists say the monument is not only the wrong way of memorializing the Civil War in Arizona — it’s a statement of hate and must be removed.
Kiana Maria Sears, vice president of the East Valley NAACP, said the monument is a “trophy” celebrating the people who fought for to continue enslaving and dehumanizing Black people.
“That is not a point a pride,” Sears said. The space around a Capitol building should be reserved for honoring “points of pride,” she added.
Ordering the monument’s removal is an opportunity for the state’s leaders to denounce the historical and continued oppression against Black people and ensure Arizona is part of the solution, not the problem, she said.
“This is a time to make it known that the leaders of our state are for the humane treatment of Black people and care for the mourning that Black people are experiencing as a community,” Sears said.
Official: The time to relocate is long overdue
Ducey has avoided taking a direct stance on the issue, following Secretary of State Katie Hobbs’ call last week for the Arizona Department of Administration to relocate the statue to storage. Instead, the Republican governor said he wanted a “public process” to decide the monument’s future.
“There is a public process to be able to put something into Wesley Bolin plaza or on state property,” Ducey said at a press conference on Thursday. “I think there should be a public process if someone wants to go the alternative route.”
Ducey has not provided further information on what such a process would entail or how it could be initiated. A spokesperson for his office referred a reporter to Ducey’s original statement when asked for clarification.
Sophia Solis, a spokesperson for Hobbs, said the public has already sent a clear message that the time to relocate these statues is long overdue.
“States and counties across the country are taking action. Arizona really should, too,” she said.
Redeem Robinson, a pastor and the Black Outreach Campaign Manager for the Arizona Coalition for Change, said what he has heard from Ducey is the same talk he has heard for years, but “the monuments are still up to this day.”
Robinson said he has worked alongside other local Black leaders — sending letters, holding press conferences and attempting to meet with Ducey — for more than three years to remove the monument.
Black leaders from around Arizona urged Ducey in 2017 to remove six memorials across the state honoring Confederate soldiers, arguing that the monuments were “erected to intimidate, terrorize and strike fear in the hearts of Arizonans, particularly African Americans, while inspiring and emboldening white supremacists.”
Ducey said at the time it was not his “desire or mission to tear down any monuments or memorials.”
Robinson said he brought up the issue in a meeting last month with Ducey and other Black clergy, but was dismissed.
“He acted like he didn’t hear and left the room,” Robinson said.
Putting up a monument on the Capitol mall is a process that can take years. To add monuments or memorials to Wesley Bolin Plaza, proponents first need to receive legislative authority, then submit cost and design details for approval, said Megan Rose, spokeswoman for the Department of Administration.
The full concept is then submitted to the Department of Administration and Historical Advisory Committee, which reviews for historical accuracy.
As for Hobb’s letter to the Department of Administration, Rose said the issue is still “under review.”
Other state, city leaders take action
have been removed across the nation since 2015, according to an estimation by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Protests against systemic racism in the wake of the killing of George Floyd brought calls for removal of these symbols to the fore, prompting leaders in locations including Richmond, Virginia; Jacksonville, Florida; and Dallas to rethink their stances on the statues and order their removal.
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat elected in 2018, earlier this month announced plans to remove the Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond.
“I believe in a Virginia that studies its past in an honest way,” Northam said at the press conference. “And in 2020, we can no longer honor a system that was based on the buying and selling of enslaved people.”
In Jacksonville, Mayor Lenny Curry ordered the removal of the city’s most prominent Confederate monument, a bronze statue of a Confederate soldier, and pledged the removal of all remaining public Confederate monuments after NFL players from the Jacksonville Jaguars joined protests.
“We hear your voices,” Curry said in his announcement.
A response to civil rights movement?
The majority of Confederate monuments across the United States were not built until years after the Civil War had ended. The biggest spike was between 1900 and the 1920s, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s research.
The Confederate monument in Wesley Bolin plaza, a gift from the United Daughters of the Confederacy, was not erected until the 1960s, almost a century after the the Civil War ended.
Chris Hanlon, a professor at Arizona State University and author of two books about the Civil War and Antebellum period, said it is important to consider that the memorial outside the Capitol was erected in the midst of an important historical moment: the civil rights movement.
Hanlon said it is especially likely that the monument was put up as a response given what he said was the United Daughters of the Confederacy’s motivation to venerate the Ku Klux Klan and their history of sentimentalizing slavery.
“It’s important to understand that whenever you talk about Confederate monuments, two historical layers always apply,” he said. “On one hand, the monument obscures the truth about a certain 19th century reality. On the other hand, it represents attempts to intervene later 20th and 21st century developments in the aftermath of the Civil War.”
The United Daughters of the Confederacy could not be reached for comment. The group has defended the monument in recent years.
“We are saddened that some people find anything connected with the Confederacy to be offensive. Our Confederate ancestors were and are Americans,” the organization said in a 2018 statement. “We as an organization do not sit in judgment of them nor do we impose the standards of the 21st century on these Americans of the 19th century.”
Arizona Division Sons of Confederate Veterans Commander Robert J. Johnson said he commends the Ducey’s decision to “let the people decide.”
“Many of the Confederate veterans who survived the war decided to head West and make a new start in Arizona Territory, contributing to its growth and eventual statehood,” Johnson said in a statement last week.
‘We can’t wait any longer’
Black leaders and allies say inaction toward removal of the symbolic monument sends a clear message of whose history is prioritized.
Inaugural Phoenix Poet Laureate Rosemarie Dombrowski said the monument is antithetical to everything for which she advocates.
“We can’t wait any longer,” Dombrowski said. “Anything we can do to address our own culpability, our own racist history and offer reparations for that should be done immediately.”
Sears said the state is looking toward its leaders to know that their voices are being heard.
“The future of Arizona depends on making the right decision now,” she said.
“There is a public process to be able to put something into Wesley Bolin plaza or on state property. I think there should be a public process if someone wants to go the alternative route.”
Gov. Doug Ducey
At a press conference on Thursday