DeKalb County Confederate Monument
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The DeKalb County Confederate Monument is a Confederate memorial that formerly stood in
Decatur, Georgia Decatur () is a city and the county seat of DeKalb County, Georgia, DeKalb County, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, United States, part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. With a population of 24,928 in the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, th ...
, United States. The was erected by the
United Daughters of the Confederacy The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is an American neo-Confederate hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers engaging in the commemoration of these ancestors, the funding of monuments to them, a ...
near the old county courthouse in 1908.


Description

The text on the base of the monument read as follows: South Face: "Erected by the men and women and children of Dekalb County, to the memory of the soldiers and sailors of the Confederacy, of whose virtues in peace and in war we are witnesses, to the end that justice may be done and that the truth perish not." West Face: "After forty two years another generation bears witness to the future that these men were of a covenant keeping race who held fast to the faith as it was given by the fathers of the Republic. Modest in prosperity, gentle in peace, brave in battle, and undespairing in defeat, they knew no law of life but loyalty and truth and civic faith, and to these virtues they consecrated their strength." North Face: "These men held that the states made the union, that the Constitution is the evidence of the covenant, that the people of the State are subject to no power except as they have agreed, that free convention binds the parties to it, that there is sanctity in oaths and obligations in contracts, and in defense of these principles they mutually pledged their live, their fortunes, and their sacred honor." East Face: "How well they kept the faith is faintly written in the records of the armies and the history of the times. We who knew them testify that as their courage was without a precedent their fortitude has been without a parallel. May their prosperity be worthy."


History

On June 12, 2020, following activism by the protest group Beacon Hill Decatur and Decatur High School students, the removal of the monument was ordered by Superior Court Justice Clarence Seeliger on the grounds that it constituted a
public nuisance In English criminal law, public nuisance is an act, condition or thing that is illegal because it interferes with the rights of the general public. In Australia In ''Kent v Johnson'', the Supreme Court of the ACT held that public nuisance is ...
under the Georgia code. The monument, removed on June 18, was among a number of memorials removed following the
murder of George Floyd On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black American man, was murdered in Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old White police officer. Floyd had been arrested after a store clerk reported that he made a purchase using a c ...
in
Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...
in May 2020. Several days later, a statue of Thomas Jefferson was also removed from near the courthouse. In January 2021, city officials announced plans to erect a statue of politician and activist
John Lewis John Robert Lewis (February 21, 1940 – July 17, 2020) was an American civil rights activist and politician who served in the United States House of Representatives for from 1987 until his death in 2020. He participated in the 1960 Nashville ...
where the monument stood, by
Basil Watson Basil Watson, CD (born 1958), is a Jamaican sculptor. He is the son of painter Barrington Watson,Housen, Claudine.'Balance' on the Beach", ''The Jamaica Gleaner'', 26 November 2006. and the brother of sculptor Raymond Watson.
. It statue was unveiled in August 2024.


See also

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List of monuments and memorials removed during the George Floyd protests During the civil unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, a number of monuments and memorials associated with racial injustice were vandalized, destroyed or removed, or commitments to remove them were announced. This oc ...


References

{{Monuments and memorials removed during the George Floyd protests 1908 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state) 1908 sculptures Monuments and memorials in the United States removed during the George Floyd protests Buildings and structures in DeKalb County, Georgia Confederate States of America monuments and memorials in Georgia Obelisks in the United States Outdoor sculptures in Georgia (U.S. state)