Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Official wants Confederate general’s statue removed
TALLAHASSEE — The bronze statue of Confederate Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith, which has stood in the U.S. Capitol since 1922, would be replaced by a statue more representative of Florida, under a bill filed by a Republican state lawmaker.
Rep. Jose Felix Diaz said he’s been considering the proposal (HB 141) for several years. The bill comes as people across the country have reconsidered Confederate symbols after the racially motivated slaying in June of nine black church members in South Carolina.
“I think that the shooting in South Carolina created an awareness that wasn’t there before,” said Diaz, who represents parts of Miami-Dade County. “When I first started asking questions about Gen. Kirby [Smith], the political appetite wasn’t there for this conversation to be had. People were not intrigued by him or Statuary Hall.”
The Smith statue in the National Statuary Hall Collection is in the Capitol Visitor Center.
The Florida Senate is considering similar legislation, Katie Betta, a spokeswoman for Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, said in an email.
The proposal follows a call in July by 11 members of Florida’s congressional delegation to remove the Smith statue. Each state is allowed to provide two statues of deceased prominent citizens to be placed in the National Statuary Hall.
Neither Diaz nor the congressional members seek to replace the state’s other statue, a marble likeness of former Apalachicola resident John Gorrie, who is considered the father of air conditioning.
Unlike Gorrie, Diaz said Smith had little impact on the state, which needs someone “more emblematic of what Florida has become.”
Under Diaz’s proposal, a committee within the state Division of Historical Resources would select “a prominent Florida citizen.” The Florida Council on Arts and Culture would be in charge of hiring and raising the money to pay a sculptor. Diaz said the money for the work most likely would come from the state.
Diaz’s proposal doesn’t recommend what would happen to the Smith statue, which includes the inscription “Florida’s Memorial to her most distinguished soldier.”
This would be at least the second attempt to replace the Smith statue.
In 1993, the Senate, backed by heavy lobbying from the Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy, stood in the way of a House proposal to replace Smith with a statue of James Van Fleet. Van Fleet was a Polk City resident and early University of Florida football coach who served with honors in World War II and the Korean War.
Among the possible replacements that Diaz said have already been proposed for the Smith statue are railroad and hotel magnate Henry Flagler, entertainment entrepreneur Walt Disney, Seminole Chief Osceola, environmentalist Marjory Stoneman Douglas and writer Zora Neale Hurston. Smith has his defenders. C.J. Hart, commander of the Kirby-Smith Camp #1209 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Jacksonville, while deferring comment to the Sons of Confederate Veterans public-relations office, said Smith is a model citizen for Florida.
“Before they start slandering Kirby Smith’s name they need to check into what he did,” Hart said. “He was an educator. Who better to represent Florida than a guy that was interested in education?”