United Daughters of the Confederacy fights removal of controversial monument in Tuskegee

A Confederate heritage group will fight the removal of a controversial Confederate memorial in Tuskegee.

The monument was placed in a downtown park by the Macon County Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1909. A lawsuit has been filed requesting the removal of the statue.

The attorney for the local UDC tells the Associated Press that the group will fight the move. Jay Hinton did not return phone calls or emails seeking comment for this story.

“All of those members have ancestors who are honored by that monument,” he told the AP.

The monument, located in front of the county courthouse in a city of 9,400 that is 97% Black, has been the subject of on-and-off protests and attempts to remove it for decades.

At question is who owns the land where the monument stands. The UDC chapter claims it has ownership of the plot which was a park then "built for white people."

The group which has about a dozen members in Tuskegee, never attempted to exclude anyone from the park because of race and considers the racial restriction offensive, Hinton said, but the wording doesn’t mean that the county should get the land back.

More: Tuskegee city councilman Johnny Ford focused on Confederate statue's removal

“We believe we have owned and still own the square,” he said.

While the group has worked with the county and city to come to an agreement, “the only proposal that continued to be offered was simply for the chapter to pay to take down its monument, move it and give the county back the land,” he said. The group refused.

The monument has to go, said Johnny Ford, a current city councilman in Tuskegee. Ford is a former mayor of the town and state representative of Macon County. He is an announced candidate in the upcoming House District 82 race.

"Our position is Macon County did not legally give the property to the daughters back then in 1909," he said. "So I welcome the opportunity for court action. They do not legally own the land. The daughters are working to preserve a monument to slavery, and in 2021 a monument to slavery has no place in the public sphere."

In July, Ford attempted to damage to monument with an electric saw in an effort to bring it down. He stopped at the request of Sheriff Andre Brunson. The UDC has since repaired the monument.

More: Move to promote Black history using Confederate tax fails in Legislature

During the past Legislative session, a bill was sponsored that would pave the way for relocating Confederate monuments in the state. State Sens. Clyde Chambliss Jr. R-Prattville, and Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, back the bill that would make Confederate Memorial Park in Autauga County a repository for the removed monuments.

The bill, which failed to come up for consideration, would also preserve funding for the park and generate an equal amount of funding for state efforts to preserve Black History. Chambliss says he will sponsor the bill again in the upcoming session.

Ford says he backs the idea of having a place to present the moved monuments.

"We are not against history, we do not deny history," he said. "History should be preserved. But Confederate monuments need to be in museums, not the public sphere.

"So yes, I would whole heartedly support any moves that would preserve Black history and place these Confederate monuments in a proper setting."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Marty Roney at mroney@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Group fighting removal of Confederate monument in Tuskegee, Alabama