Will Collierville petition state to change Confederate marker?
A group led by Town Administrator James Lewellen outlined several possible “solutions” for the Confederate marker in Town Square during Monday’s Collierville Board of Mayor and Aldermen meeting.
The solutions presented included adding a plaque covering “Confederate Park” on the marker, removing all monuments in Town Square and imbedding markers into the sidewalk, and adding a new marker honoring “Union troops of African descent.”
The one thing each of those solutions has in common: A petition would need to be made to the state.
“The backup plan is to take the markers that we do have on the square and completely recast them again and make them all uniform,” Lewellen said. “In the entire five markers on the square there are just a few words that need to be addressed so we weren’t proposing no major doing away with the markers, we’re proposing renovations to the ones that are already there.”
The topic was discussed but not voted on during Monday’s meeting.
Mayor Stan Joyner said they are still “a good ways away from that,” but asked Lewellen and the group to compile information on the process and what changes could be made so the board can review it.
Longtime resident Jewel Jordan and Lewellen addressed the board with updates to the group’s findings on the process of petitioning the state and what solutions could keep “everyone happy as a family.”
“All we’re really asking here is to change some of the adjectives on the signs,” Jordan said. “To better describe and use words that are not offensive to the Black people, to the white people, to the Indians, or whatever group is in Collierville. Use words that won’t be offensive to anybody and so then we’ll appease everybody.”
Joyner emphasized during the meeting that nothing can happen without a public hearing to discuss what requests the group brings forward.
“Before that vote would happen we would have to have the work that Mr. Lewellen has described, we need to have a final version of it,” Joyner said. “Then we’d have to hold community meetings, public hearings where all the community is involved in the changes that we would be making there.”
The Tennessee Heritage Protection Act prohibits the removal of any memorial located on public property but the municipality can petition the state for a change.
The petition would need approval from two-thirds of the historical commission.
“We want to make the square an area that’s more inviting,” Lewellen said.
Now, the mayor and aldermen will await to hear from Lewellen on his findings and the next steps of the process.
The debate over the Confederate marker in Collierville
The last time the board addressed the Confederate marker was in July when Jordan asked the board for permission to speak about the marker with the United Daughters of Confederacy, which donated the gray slab to Collierville in the 1940s.
Jordan along with three other residents have met with Lewellen for more than a year to talk about solutions for the marker controversy.
“Some say, well, it’s the marker’s history, don’t get rid of it, I understand that,” Jordan said. “Some say it’s hurting, it’s hurtful, I understand that. Rather than sit back and complain, we need to do something.”
After the May 2020 death of George Floyd, a Black man killed by a white Minneapolis police officer who knelt on his neck for about 9 minutes, protests to remove Confederate monuments arose around the country.
Some Collierville residents started calling for the removal of the United Daughters of the Confederacy marker, a gray slab on the west side of Town Square that declares the location as “Confederate Park.” The Collierville Board of Mayor and Aldermen passed a resolution in 2017 naming the park “Town Square Park,” but the marker remains there.
The marker was given to the town in the 1940s by the Louisa Bedford Chapter of the United Daughters of Confederacy in memory of battles fought in Collierville during the Civil War.
The marker has attracted residents and activists across Shelby County to protest and educate the community on its history.
National organizations also caught wind of the Confederate marker and have asked for its immediate removal.
The Council on American-islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, announced again on Tuesday its support to take down the marker. The council first voiced its support in November of 2020.
“Confederate monuments were designed to be symbols of white supremacy and hate that were installed to intimidate Black Americans and keep them from exercising their civil rights,” CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper said. “They do not belong anywhere on public land or places of honor.”
Collierville Community Justice wants action
Collierville Community Justice formed on the basis of removing the Confederate marker and works toward social, economic and racial justice in the town.
After Joyner said there would not be a vote Monday evening, asserting the need for community meetings prior to any decisions being made, Collierville Community Justice members left the chambers to host a press conference on the Collierville Town Hall steps.
“While we are excited that some movement has finally begun, after two years, we do look forward eagerly for it to move quickly from here on out because two years was a very long time to wait for just this small action,” said Emily Fulmer, a Collierville Community Justice board member.
She went on to list the various other advocacy areas the group is involved in, including election reform and affordable housing, before ultimately coming back to the potential removal of the Confederate marker being a symbol that could act as a course correction.
“By never truly acknowledging or addressing these issues, our leaders have created a culture where a white supremacist group feels comfortable putting stickers all over our parks, where the Proud Boys can have a rally at the Confederate marker in our town square,” she said. “Collierville is and will continue to be a target for white supremacist propaganda unless we make it very clear that that is not welcome here.”
LJ Abraham, a local activist, also spoke at the press conference. She asserted that a plaque to cover the stone marker and small changes to the verbiage would not be adequate.
“Just because you change the verbiage on a monument does not take away the meaning of the monument and the reason that was installed in the first place,” Abraham said. “It is a monument of hate towards Black people in the United States. It is a symbol of the Confederacy and the Confederacy was here to keep Black people enslaved. [Putting] a plaque over the bottom does not... make it less hateful.”
Fulmer said she believes the Collierville Board of Mayor and Aldermen had an impossible task before them as they “attempt to please everyone.”
“They are trying to propose this idea that’s going to be pleasing everyone, and they’re going to quickly realize it’s pleasing to no one,” she said. “It’s not really addressing any real issues. It’s not really going to change anything from our perspective if that language remains and the Sons of Confederate Veterans, or other Neo-confederate groups, are going to be upset that anything’s being done at all. They’re in a hard position if they’re going to try to please everyone. What we would like to see is that they just take a clear stand.”
Dima Amro covers the suburbs for The Commercial Appeal and can be reached at Dima.amro@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @Amrodima.
Lucas Finton is a news reporter for The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at Lucas.finton@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @Lucasfinton.
“Some say, well, it’s the marker’s history, don’t get rid of it, I understand that. Some say it’s hurting, it’s hurtful, I understand that. Rather than sit back and complain, we need to do something.”
Jewel Jordan
Collierville resident