Confederate monument taken down at Capitol
Group reclaims marker in nighttime operation
State officials announced Thursday morning that a monument to Confederate troops outside Arizona’s Capitol was removed overnight.
But unlike in some cities, where crowds have taken down similar statues on their own initiative, the move was part of a plan approved by the state and surprised even those who have been calling for its removal for years.
The Department of Administration announced only hours earlier, on Wednesday afternoon, that it had agreed to return the statue to the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which gave it to the state government in the 1960s.
The department said that the group requested in a letter dated June 30 that the state “re-gift” the monument to the organization, which would move it to private property along with another monument near U.S. 60 outside Gold Canyon.
“These monuments were gifted to the state and are now in need of repair, but due to the current political climate, we believe it unwise to repair them where they are located,” the letter said.
By morning, the monument to Confederate troops was gone, with only a low concrete base remaining where it once stood opposite the Jewish War Veterans Memorial and near a memorial to Martin Luther King Jr. A few
tracks in the dirt were the only sign that anything had happened.
Megan Rose, a spokeswoman for the Department of Administration, said the United Daughters of the Confederacy handled the logistics of the move.
“I believe they hired a contractor for the removal,” she said. “We weren’t out there with the forklifts.”
The vacant space will now be available for future monuments, she said.
Civil rights activists have long called on the state to remove the monument, which was made of stones, shaped like Arizona and inscribed with the motto “a nation that forgets its past has no future.”
Arizona was the site of the Civil War’s westernmost clashes. While those battlefields are marked by memorials, critics have seen efforts to commemorate and celebrate the Confederacy in more prominent public spaces – such as outside a state Capitol – as part of an effort to recast the story of the Civil War with the South in a more sympathetic light and downplay slavery.
Rep. Reginald Bolding, a Democrat whose district includes the Capitol, said he reached out to the governor about
Confederate monuments around the state in 2015 after a white supremacist who embraced Confederate symbols killed nine Black worshipers at a church in Charleston, South Carolina.
“When you have symbols of hate that are specifically in state-sponsored areas, it makes it seem or appear as if the state condones those symbols,” Bolding said.
Gov. Doug Ducey seemed open to the discussion at first, but “it fizzled out,” the lawmaker said.
The governor said in 2017 it was not his “desire or mission to tear down any monuments or memorials.” And the governor has said he wants a public process to decide the fate of the monuments.
Amid nationwide protests against racism earlier this summer, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs suggested moving the monument into the care of a state museum. She cited a state law that gives the Department of Administration discretion to remove monuments from the plaza.
“Gov. Ducey had the ability to remove this Confederate monument this entire time,” Bolding said.
Redeem Robinson, a local pastor and the Black Outreach Campaign Manager for the Arizona Coalition for Change, said he was shocked when he heard that the monument would be relocated after years of inaction.
“I was just thinking ‘Wow, it looks like the work we’ve been putting in to getting these monuments removed has actually paid off,’ ” he said.
While he described the change as a victory, Robinson said it was disappointing that it happened by request of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and not in reaction to years of requests from Black leaders in the community.
“Doug Ducey failed the Black community by not listening to us,” he said.
The governor told reporters Thursday he still would have preferred a public process but said that was not an option right now because the Legislature was not in session.
“They asked for it back. We granted their wish,” he said of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
The Capitol mall had become a point of focus of recent protests in Arizona against racism and police brutality after George Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minneapolis.
During one protest on Juneteenth, a man was arrested on suspicion of dousing the Arizona-shaped stone monument in red paint.
Sean Brennan, the man identified by police, said at the time that he did it to protest racism and inspire protesters.
Brennan said Thursday he was “overjoyed” to hear that the monuments would be moved.
“I had started to feel like it was for nothing,” he said, but now feels that it serves as evidence that direct action can be successful.
“It’s not enough unfortunately to have our voices heard,” he said. “They’ve been hearing us for decades and nothing changed – you have to take the change.”
Jacob Raiford, an organizer and spokesperson for The W.E. Rising Project, was at the Capitol Mall as recently as a few weeks ago demanding officials remove the monument.
Even on occasions where demonstrations were held elsewhere, he said the group encouraged people to post #tearitdown on social channels and contact officials about Confederate monuments in the state and other symbols of hate.
“All of these symbols represent a very dark time in our state and nation’s history,” Raiford said, adding that he hopes to use this momentum to remove other symbols of hate as well.
And the fight doesn’t stop when they are removed, he said.
“These monuments don’t deserve to be on private property,” Raiford said. “They need to be put in museums as artifacts, not monuments.”