Four of the seven sitting commissioners voted to remove a statue of a Confederate soldier from Munn Park, though the monument's destination is as yet unknown. And unlike the Hillsborough monument that caused great controversy over the summer as county officials grappled with the question of whether to remove it from the grounds of a county courthouse in downtown Tampa, the Lakeland monument may still end up somewhere on public property — just not in Munn Park.
During an hours-long hearing Monday, members of the public who were for and against its removal spoke to the county commission.
One noted how the city hadn't even existed during the Civil War and that the city's founder, Abraham Munn, wasn't even from a Confederate state (he was born in New Jersey and worked in Kentucky, the former of which was a Union state and the latter of which sought protection from the Union after a period of neutrality) — thus, it has little to do with Lakeland's history but is meant to impart something else.
“The primary purpose of a statue is to honor, not to teach history,” said Alisha Folsom. “This is not the history or heritage I want our city to preserve or honor.”
Longtime civil rights activists said that statues in places like public parks are deeply inappropriate, given how many of the Confederate monuments that were put up throughout the south during Jim Crow and how they were intended to intimidate African Americans some 50 to 100 years after slavery ended.
Planning consultant Sylvia Blackmon-Roberts, speaking on behalf of Alpha Kappa Alpha — the nation's oldest sorority for educated women of color — said the Confederate flag, the likeness of which she said is etched onto the side of the monument, accompanied white supremacists during lynchings and other acts of violence against descendants of slaves.
“Many say Confederate monuments are history, but I beg to differ. They are heritage symbols of hate,” she said. “I stand here today to ask you to remove the monument from Munn Lake Park.”
Those who wanted to keep the monument argued that such monuments were about honoring all American veterans.
“That monument down there has a thing to say about vets. All vets. From the Revolutionary War…and the Civil War,” said resident Patrick Scott Kelly, who added, “I'm glad that war was won by the North. It's better now.”
The commission had a somewhat lengthy debate of its own, which centered on to where the statue could move and at what cost.
Commissioners shot down the original measure slated for discussion, which would have placed the statue among other works of art commemorating various aspects of the city's cultural heritage. Commissioner Don Selvage proposed the alternative, which directs city staff to study the possibility of moving the statue to one of three potential locales: Veterans Park, Memorial Park or Frances Langford Promenade.
“How could that be dishonoring a Confederate soldier, to be down there among soldiers who have fought in all of our wars?” Selvage said of Veterans Park.
Three commissioners, Mayor Howard Wiggs as well as Commissioners Edie Yates and Bill Read, opposed the measure to move the monument.
The next steps on the matter are slated for discussion after four new commissioners are sworn into office in January.
This article appears in Nov 30 – Dec 7, 2017.