- Title: Confederate symbols being removed at unprecedented rate- report
- Date: 24th March 2021
- Summary: EAST POINT, GEORGIA, UNITED STATES (RECENT) (REUTERS VIA ZOOM) (SOUNDBITE) (English) PRESIDENT OF ATLANTA NAACP, 72, RICHARD ROSE, SAYING: "Many of us are resolved to basically counterdemonstrate when we understand that the white supremacists will be meeting there [Stone Mountain] to, to emphasize that they consider that as their home and their domain. And so that's what w
- Embargoed: 7th April 2021 15:52
- Keywords: Confederate Monuments Southern Poverty Law Center Stone Mountain hate speech
- Location: PORTSMOUTH + RICHMOND, VIRGINIA + MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA + STONE MOUNTAIN + WOODSTOCK + LATHONIA + EAST POINT, GEORGIA / INTERNET
- City: PORTSMOUTH + RICHMOND, VIRGINIA + MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA + STONE MOUNTAIN + WOODSTOCK + LATHONIA + EAST POINT, GEORGIA / INTERNET
- Country: USA
- Topics: Race Relations / Ethnic Issues,Society/Social Issues,United States
- Reuters ID: LVA00CE5FYNUV
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: The death of George Floyd last year led to an unprecedented uptick in removal of Confederate symbols throughout the United States, a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has found.
A total of 167 Confederate symbols and statues were removed last year following the May 25, 2020, death of Floyd. Just one other statue had been taken down in 2020 prior to Floyd's death.
The total number of 168 toppled statues in 2020 represents a higher total than the previous four years combined, the SPLC said in its report.
The campaign represents a "tremendous victory," Lecia Brooks, the chief of staff at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told Reuters in an interview.
In her interview, she said the connection between Floyd's death and the monuments was organic.
"People went... on their own" to demonstrate at sites like the Robert E. Lee Monument in Richmond, Virginia, which still stands. "There was no organizing around it. People just went there… That is a result of years and years of grassroots organizing and activism that" began after the 2015 mass shooting at a South Carolina Black Church, she said.
Among the statues that were removed last year were the Confederate monuments in city squares like Portsmouth, Virginia and statues to Confederate generals, J.E.B Stuart and Stonewall Jackson, in Richmond.
The SPLC emphasizes that more than 2,100 Confederate symbols survive in public spaces throughout the United States.
And none loom larger than Stone Mountain, the 3,200-acre park that features a plantation home, slaves quarters and a stone carving featuring Confederate leaders Lee, Jackson and Jefferson Davis.
"All of these things are picked up and placed in the middle of the park in a place called 'Historic District' with no context. It a ridicule of the history of slavery," Stone Mountain Action Coalition [SMAC] Co-Founder, Meymoona Freeman, told Reuters. "There's no apologies and it sits there to this day."
Neither the Stone Mountain Memorial Association nor the NGO, Protect the South, responded to a request for comment by Reuters.
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