Ole Miss finally removes Confederate statue from campus

A Confederate monument that’s been a divisive symbol at the University of Mississippi was removed Tuesday from a prominent spot on the campus.

It will be taken to a Civil War cemetery in a secluded part of campus. Students and faculty who pushed the university for years to move the statue have criticized administrators’ draft plan for the new site, which includes a lighted pathway to where the figure will stand and the possible addition of headstones over what, for decades, have been unmarked graves.

“It’s not going to create a shrine to the Confederacy,” University of Mississippi Chancellor Glenn Boyce said on June 24. “People will have to judge that when they see the end product.”

The University of Mississippi was founded in 1848, and the marble statue of a saluting Confederate soldier was put up in 1906.