A Confederate monument erected as recent as 28 years ago was taken down on Friday after Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to have it removed from a Georgia courthouse.
The commissioners agreed in January to move the monument from outside of a Lawrenceville, Georgia, courthouse and into storage until it concluded a legal battle to determine its fate, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. While state law has strict restrictions against the relocation of Confederate monuments, the county commissioners found an exception due to two separate acts of vandalism that threatened the monument’s safety, thus allowing the group to move it to another location.
The group of commissioners passed a resolution where they acknowledged that not moving the monument “may result in additional acts of vandalism and create a public safety concern for the City of Lawrenceville and Gwinnett County, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Etched into the monument is an early rendition of a Confederate flag. It also depicts a picture of a Confederate soldier with a notation that reads, “LEST WE FORGET,” and boasts a quote from British statesman Winston Churchill.
Commissioner Kirkland Carden, who helped circulate the petition to remove the monument, told the Gwinnett Daily Post in a statement that it was rewarding to see the Confederate symbol removed from the community.
Gwinnett County removes Confederate monument from Lawrenceville Square https://t.co/lznQVsPWVt
pic.twitter.com/xpIztOiyOt— Gwinnett Daily Post (@GwinnettDaily) February 6, 2021
Carden said the recent move was “a long time coming, and it does feel good to follow through on a campaign promise that was important” to residents.
“You know we started this petition on Juneteenth [June 19] of 2020,” he said. “Fast-forward, here we are now, so I think this is a good start to build a better tomorrow, which was my campaign slogan.”
“I feel more like a Gwinnettian today than I did yesterday,” she said. “It’s sweet on so many levels.”
Joe Bath, commander of the Lawrenceville camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said he would have liked the county to have let the lawsuit run its course before moving the statue. The AJC reported that the group contributed the funds to erect the statue and paid to maintain it. Bath said he didn’t learn of the county commissioners' decision to move the monument until Friday morning.
“These people, they have no concern for the law, no concern for humanity,” he said. “It’s funny how all of a sudden these things are hurtful. I never saw that monument as a threat to anything.”
Mart Clamp, the owner of Clamp Sandblast, said the removal process went smooth and the statue sustained no damage. The monument was moved to an undisclosed location until lawmakers decide what will become of it, according to the AJC.
The Lawrenceville monument is the latest of Confederate symbols and statues to be removed as protesters across the country call for politicians to end the celebration of pro-slavery icons.
As Blavity previously reported, the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners approved a resolution last month to replace a Confederate monument at a local courthouse with a statue of late civil rights activist Rep. John Lewis.
“John was a giant of a man, with a humble heart,” Georgia’s DeKalb County Commissioner Mereda Davis Johnson said. “He met no strangers and he truly was a man who loved the people and who loved his country, which he represented very well. He deserves this honor.”
