Collierville residents ask board to remove Confederate marker
The same month that activists rallied in the Collierville Town Square to oppose a Confederate marker, they urged town officials to take action.
At the meeting of the Collierville Board of Mayor and Aldermen on Monday, officials were silent on whether they would take steps to relocate the gray slab that sits on the west side of the square, declaring its location “Confederate Park.”
“If Town Square Park really is Town Square Park and not Confederate Park, and if there’s nothing to be learned directly from the marker in its current setting, it seems to be worth considering and asking the county to consider if we would be better served by relocating the marker to somewhere like the Morton Museum,” Collierville resident Ron Buck, a history professor and minister, told the board at its meeting Monday.
Students don’t learn history from statues, Buck said, and the monument “had less to do with preserving history than perpetuating a narrative.”
On Monday, there were no formal items related to the marker on the agenda. However, nearly all citizens making public comments advocated for it to be moved out of the square.
Afterward, Collierville Mayor Stan Joyner said it’s up to individual board members to decide whether they want to see an item on the agenda related to the monument’s removal, but that he would not support it.
“I don’t think it’s an issue,” Joyner said. “I truly don’t. I see people, all nationalities, using that park with nobody upset about anything. They just come and enjoy the park for the same reason why I come and enjoy the park.”
History of the marker
The marker was given to the town in the 1940s from the Louisa Bedford Chapter of the United Daughters of Confederacy in memory of battles fought in Collierville during the Civil War.
Emily Fulmer, who spoke Monday, showed a copy of minutes from the
United Daughters of the Confederacy’s 1940 Annual Convention. In those minutes, they wrote that they placed the marker “converting the Municipal Park into ‘Confederate memorial Park.’”
Collierville residents have advocated for the removal of the monument since at least 2017. That year, staff at the Morton Museum of Collierville History found documents from as early as 1866 referring to the square as “Public Park” or “Public Square,” but not giving it an official name, according to Commercial Appeal archives. In 2017, the Board of Mayor and Alderman officially passed a resolution naming it “Town Square Park.”
And, after a resident pointed out that Google identified the square as “Confederate Park,” the town worked to correct that. Today, Google Maps shows it as “Town Square Park.”
A brochure from the Collierville Chamber also identifies it as “Confederate Park.” Fulmer said her mother-inlaw was given a copy just two months ago.
Joyner said he wasn’t aware the chamber was still giving out copies of the map. Although the board doesn’t have authority over the chamber, it will advocate for the removal of the name “Confederate Park” from the map, he said.
But the marker identifying Town Square as “Confederate Park” remains.
Activist: Marker a ‘clear reminder’ of racist oppression
After the city of Memphis removed its Confederate statues, the state gave greater authority to the Tennessee Historical Commission to decide whether a monument may be altered or removed — including whether public land with a monument on it can be sold or transferred to another owner, the tactic used to remove Confederate monuments in Memphis.
Several activists offered to volunteer their time to apply for the necessary permissions from the Tennessee Historical Commission to move the monument out of the square.
“These monuments are a clear reminder of how the South viewed and still continues to view Black people,” said LJ Abraham, a Memphis activist. “I certainly hope this is not the message Collierville is trying to give its Black residents and business owners.”
Kate Tooley, a Collierville resident, told the board how Germany has no monuments that celebrate the Nazi armed forces. A member of the military before moving to Collierville, she was stationed in Germany and is married to a German native.
Yet the descendants of members of the German armed forces used to make the same excuses that the descendants of Confederate soldiers now make, she said.
“Through a very deliberate national penance, most Germans now would be horrified by that glorification of that part of their past,” Tooley said. “No one would claim that the renaming, rebuilding or removing of monuments in public spaces eradicated the roots of racism. But public spaces should represent a conscious decision about what values the community wants to commit itself to holding. What are the values we want to uphold in Collierville?”
Katherine Burgess covers county government, religion and the suburbs. She can be reached at katherine .burgess@commercialappeal.com, 901-529-2799 or followed on Twitter @kathsburgess.