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Tag: Confederate monuments

  • Florida Republican tries again to ban removal of Confederate monuments

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    Credit: by Monivette Cordeiro

    A Florida Republican has re-filed a measure to penalize local governments attempting to remove or destroy Confederate monuments and other historic memorials.

    HB 496 by Sen. Stan McClain, an Ocala Republican, demands the state protect “each historic Florida monument or memorial from removal, damage, or destruction.” It’s the fourth time this bill has been introduced in successive legislative sessions as part of a broader conservative response to the nationwide movement to down or rename Confederate statues.

    “The Legislature finds that an accurate and factual history belongs to all Floridians and future generations and that the state has an obligation to protect and preserve such history,” the bill reads.

    Local government officials who try to take down the monuments would be fined up to $1,000, and could open themselves to lawsuits by either the group that helped maintain or erect the memorial or any Floridian who regularly uses it for “remembrance purposes.” A court could award the suing party damages up to $100,000.

    The push to remove Confederate images emerged in 2015, after white supremacist Dylann Roof killed nine Black people in the Mother Emanuel AME Church a in Charleston, South Carolina. Roof had posed multiple times with a Confederate battle flag leading up to the mass shooting. From 2015 to 2018, roughly 110 Confederate memorials were removed nationwide. In addition, the state stopped flying the Confederate flag over the State House.

    Hillsborough County was one of the first local governments in Florida to act following that incident, with the county commission voting later that summer to remove a Confederate flag that had hung in its county center, the Phoenix previously reported.

    The Florida Legislature voted in 2016 to remove a statue of Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith that represented Florida in the U.S. Capitol, and again in 2018 to replace it with a statue of Mary McLeod Bethune, known for starting a private college for African American students in Daytona Beach that would become Bethune-Cookman College.

    The removal push was reinvigorated in 2020 after George Floyd, a Black man, was killed by a white police officer; nationally, 168 monuments were nixed that year alone, which eventually sparked the counter-movement to keep the statues seen in Florida.

    In 2023, Florida Republicans first attempted to pass the measure to ban historic monuments being removed, damaged, or destroyed. Similar measures were introduced in the 2024 and 2025 sessions, but each failed before reaching either the House or Senate floors. As of 2024, Florida still had 73 of these monuments existing statewide.

    Sen. McClain’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The 2026 session begins on Jan. 13.

    Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Contact Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com. Follow Florida Phoenix on Facebook and Twitter.

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    The bills requires schools to create plans and assign personnel to address situations in which students with autism wander from safe areas

    The push to remove Confederate images emerged in 2015, after white supremacist Dylann Roof killed nine Black people in a Charleston church

    Critics described the Heritage Foundation declaration as promoting indoctrination



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    Livia Caputo, Florida Phoenix
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  • West Point restores Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s portrait

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    A painting of Gen. Robert E. Lee dressed in his Confederate uniform is back on display in West Point’s library, several years after the storied academy removed honors to the Civil War military leader.Related video above from 2021: Robert E. Lee statue removed in CharlottesvilleThere are also plans to restore a bust of Lee that had been removed from a plaza at the U.S. Military Academy, and a quote from Lee about honor that was removed from a separate plaza is now on display beneath the portrait, an Army spokesperson said Tuesday.The items were removed to comply with a Department of Defense directive in 2022 that ordered the academy to address racial injustice and do away with installations that “commemorate or memorialize the Confederacy.The Pentagon’s decision to re-hang the portrait, which shows a Black man leading Lee’s horse in the background, was first reported by The New York Times. It had been hanging in the library since the 1950s before it was placed it in storage.The actions at West Point come as the Trump administration restores Confederate names and monuments that had been removed in recent years.”At West Point, the United States Military Academy is prepared to restore historical names, artifacts, and assets to their original form and place,” Rebecca Hodson, the Army’s communications director, said in a prepared statement. “Under this administration, we honor our history and learn from it — we don’t erase it.”President Donald Trump issued an executive order in March titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” that decried efforts to reinterpret American history. The Army then restored the names of bases that originally honored Confederate leaders, finding service members with the same surnames to honor.A commission created by Congress recommended in 2022 that the name and images of Confederate officers be removed from military academies. Lee graduated second in his West Point class in 1829 and later served as superintendent, and his name and image had prominent places at the academy on the Hudson River.Congress took this action after repeated complaints by current and former enlistees and officers in nearly every branch of the armed services, who described a deep-rooted culture of racism and discrimination that stubbornly festers, despite repeated efforts to eradicate it.Ty Seidule, a retired brigadier general who served as vice chair of the commission, said Lee’s image should not be on display because he “chose treason” and does not represent the values taught to cadets at West Point.”It is against the motto of ‘Duty, Honor, Country,’” Seidule said. “Robert E. Lee is the antithesis of that, because his duty and honor was for a rebellious slave republic.”Seidule, now a history professor at Hamilton College, also questioned whether the restoration of these symbols at West Point are legal under the federal law that led to their removal.An Army statement asserts that the law does not bar the restoration of Confederacy-related names, symbols, displays, monuments or paraphernalia on military property.

    A painting of Gen. Robert E. Lee dressed in his Confederate uniform is back on display in West Point’s library, several years after the storied academy removed honors to the Civil War military leader.

    Related video above from 2021: Robert E. Lee statue removed in Charlottesville

    There are also plans to restore a bust of Lee that had been removed from a plaza at the U.S. Military Academy, and a quote from Lee about honor that was removed from a separate plaza is now on display beneath the portrait, an Army spokesperson said Tuesday.

    The items were removed to comply with a Department of Defense directive in 2022 that ordered the academy to address racial injustice and do away with installations that “commemorate or memorialize the Confederacy.

    The Pentagon’s decision to re-hang the portrait, which shows a Black man leading Lee’s horse in the background, was first reported by The New York Times. It had been hanging in the library since the 1950s before it was placed it in storage.

    The actions at West Point come as the Trump administration restores Confederate names and monuments that had been removed in recent years.

    “At West Point, the United States Military Academy is prepared to restore historical names, artifacts, and assets to their original form and place,” Rebecca Hodson, the Army’s communications director, said in a prepared statement. “Under this administration, we honor our history and learn from it — we don’t erase it.”

    President Donald Trump issued an executive order in March titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” that decried efforts to reinterpret American history. The Army then restored the names of bases that originally honored Confederate leaders, finding service members with the same surnames to honor.

    A commission created by Congress recommended in 2022 that the name and images of Confederate officers be removed from military academies. Lee graduated second in his West Point class in 1829 and later served as superintendent, and his name and image had prominent places at the academy on the Hudson River.

    Congress took this action after repeated complaints by current and former enlistees and officers in nearly every branch of the armed services, who described a deep-rooted culture of racism and discrimination that stubbornly festers, despite repeated efforts to eradicate it.

    Ty Seidule, a retired brigadier general who served as vice chair of the commission, said Lee’s image should not be on display because he “chose treason” and does not represent the values taught to cadets at West Point.

    “It is against the motto of ‘Duty, Honor, Country,’” Seidule said. “Robert E. Lee is the antithesis of that, because his duty and honor was for a rebellious slave republic.”

    Seidule, now a history professor at Hamilton College, also questioned whether the restoration of these symbols at West Point are legal under the federal law that led to their removal.

    An Army statement asserts that the law does not bar the restoration of Confederacy-related names, symbols, displays, monuments or paraphernalia on military property.

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