Description
The Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument was a commemorative obelisk that was erected in Linn Park, Birmingham, Alabama in 1905. The monument was dismantled and removed in 2020.
The cornerstone of the Monument plinth was laid during the 1894 Reunion of United Confederate Veterans on Confederate Decoration Day, April 26. and contained a Bible and Confederate flag. The slab of rock was unused for several years, though a surplus artillery piece from the Spanish-American War of 1898 once rested on it. On May 29, 1896, The United Daughters of the Confederacy held a meeting to decide what to do with the plinth and, in 1900, raised money for construction of the obelisk. The 52 foot high monument was completed on April 27, 1905.
In 2017, following widespread concern about the monument being a symbol of historic racism, the Birmingham city council erected a barrier surrounding the memorial, resulting in a lawsuit being brought against it by the state. In January 2019, an Alabama court declared unconstitutional the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act that prohibited "alteration" of the monument.[7] The lower court's decision was reversed in November 2019 by the state Supreme Court, which upheld a fine of $25,000 against the city council.
Following protests in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd, during which protestors damaged and tried to remove the monument, the city council removed the obelisk, leaving only the plinth. The state Attorney General responded by filing a new lawsuit against the city council saying the removal was in violation of the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act of 2017, a law passed specifically to prevent the removal of this monument. It was the most prominent Confederate monument in the state. The Alabama Attorney General filed suit against the city of Birmingham for violating the statute. Mayor Randall Woodfin said the expected $25,000 fine for removing the statue would be much more affordable than the cost of continued unrest in the city.
Birmingham Mayor Woodfin was interviewed on The Today Show where he stated he has received death threats following the removal of the monument.
Here is verbatim of the interview, in part:
AL ROKER: "And for doing that, we hear your life’s been threatened for taking this action. What’s happened?"
WOODFIN: "Unfortunately, in the state of Alabama, there’s a lot of people who like to participate in revisionist history. They believe it’s American to support the Civil War in relation to these Confederate monuments, but they’re mad because we took the statue down, and yes, there have been several threats, but our security team is not only taking it serious as it relates to me and my protection, but City Hall as well as the citizens of Birmingham protection as well. I tell you this, though, Al, it’s important to note that the city of Birmingham was not even a city during the Civil War, and we don’t have time to worry about something that’s not working for our city, and relegates black people to property and slavery, and so it’s important that we take this down and move forward, and we accomplished that yesterday." - Birmingham Mayor Woodfin