Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire I knew it was coming. Attack on the local Confederate Soldier Memorial

Amid the national debate over Confederate flags and related symbols comes a push to remove a Confederate soldier memorial next to Alachua County’s administration building.


Mickie Anderson/The Gainesville Sun
The large statue at the intersection of University Avenue and Main Street features a rebel holding the barrel of an upturned gun. It bears the inscription, “In memory of the Confederate dead,” and contains an original Confederate flag and the dates “1861 1865.”

The deaths of nine worshipers at a Charleston, South Carolina, church allegedly at the hands of 21-year-old Dylann Roof earlier this month have sparked debate across the country about Confederate symbols in public places.

One recently formed local group is issuing an online call for the statue’s removal through its Facebook page Remove the Confederate Statue! End White Supremacy and Racist Violence!

The group is organizing a meeting at 5:30 p.m. on July 9 at the administration building to discuss its plans and is urging citizens to attend the County Commission meeting on July 14 at 8:45 a.m. to “finish the job of getting the statue removed.”

Jesse Arost, one of the group’s organizers, wrote on the group’s Facebook page: “While removing a statue doesn’t change anything on the ground for people who face racist oppression in their daily lives, that isn’t a justification for letting a monument stand that is dedicated to those who defended the worst in humanity. It is time for Alachua County to remove this monument to bigotry.”

Contacted by phone Monday, Arost said since moving to Gainesville 11 years ago, he “never felt very happy” about having a Confederate statue so prominently displayed.

County Commissioner Robert “Hutch” Hutchinson linked to the event from his personal Facebook page Saturday afternoon and wrote that he hoped public discussion about the monument would not “mask or over-simplify” less-symbolic issues posed by racism and discrimination.

Those debating on social media over the weekend included some who would take down the statue, those who believe it to be an important reminder of our shared history that should be left alone, and those who want to see it moved to a museum.

Several supported the idea of moving the statue to the Matheson History Museum, which prompted a group of the museum’s staff members to visit the statue Monday morning.

The group, which included Stephanie Pastore, Joanna Grey, Jared Blocker and museum director Peggy Macdonald, quickly concluded that moving the large, heavy statue and obelisk would be a huge logistical challenge.

“How do you even take down something like this without destroying it?” Macdonald asked.

Even if it could be done, the cost of moving the structure would likely be high, they said.

They wondered out loud if creating a “memorial gardens” area where the statue now stands with statues honoring other people or groups might be a suitable alternative and more palatable than simply tearing down history.

“Personally, I think tearing down artifacts is like what the Taliban would do, and I think we’re better than that,” Macdonald said. But she said having a “healthy conversation” about community history is a welcome idea.

The Kirby Smith chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy was granted permission in 1904 to erect the statue — roughly 40 years after the Civil War, when emotions were still so frayed that Independence Day was not celebrated in the Gainesville area, Pastore said. The chapter still exists, but its members could not be reached Monday.

as my black friend told me, the goal is to have not a single Confederate monument standing, within 5 years.

Wonder what will be carved on Stone Mountain after they blast of the current occupants?

There should be a moving tax of 300 k for any liberal Yankees moving to any of the southern states. These SOB's laugh at the south out of one side of their mouth and then go to it willingly to retire or for a fresh start. Make them pay for it

Am gonna suggest that broadly pointing your finger at the northern states is only evidence of the same narrow minded thinking--hoping to hit "A" while aiming at "B".

We were sitting at a meeting for expanding a parking lot. Some trees had to be cut and some dirt moved. A woman sitting with a bevy of like-minded chunkers stood up and spoke with a very southern accent, "this has to to stopped right now--the earth and trees are moaning!"

The liberal mind-set is the problem and the large urban populations spawn them. Sit-on-their-ass academics dream this crap up and the dutiful dole crowd receives their stipend to vote their bidding.

If I could find a state free of these asshat progressive evangelists, I'd move tomorrow.

Yes, and those damned Yankees who move south spend their money and contribute to the economy of wherever they land. Most retired people don't get involved in local politics, so, on the balance, they add a lot more than they take. Most Yankees view themselves as Americans and are indifferent/disinterested in obsessing over a war that ended long before they, their parents, and their grandparents were born. The have no ill-will toward any southerner.