Confederate monument furor lingers in Jacksonville

Controversy over Confederate monuments remains in Jacksonville — and comments on such had their place at Monday evening’s Jacksonville City Council meeting.

Recall that in August, Council President Anna Brosche responded to the violence in Charlottesville by demanding an inventory of monuments, ahead of removing and relocating them to a museum or some other place with a similar curatorial function.

Nine days later, the City Council met — an evening dominated by hours of public comment on the monuments.

The weather storm came and went; the storm about monuments largely seemed to have receded along with Irma’s storm surge.

Crowds were thinner Monday than they were previously, to say the least.

And at least one Council member thought discussion should be tabled altogether until there was actually a bill for said removal of monuments.

Councilman Tommy Hazouri noted in agenda meeting that discussions of monuments were “out of the ordinary” given that “there’s no bill before us.”

“It’s not healthy to have discussion pro and con when there’s nothing to be pro or conning on,” Hazouri said.

Healthy or not, the discussion happened anyway — even though it mostly was a rehash of the longform discussion previously.

Confederate monument defender Seber Newsome Jr. noted that opponents of monuments relied on threats and intimidation, and their moves against monuments were a full-frontal assault on the Constitution itself.

Newsome pushed for more monuments — including those of prominent African-Americans — in Hemming Park, urging (as he has done previously) a citizen referendum on monument removal.

Not everyone agreed with Newsome, of course. In fact, proponents of monuments were outnumbered by opponents.

Frequent public commenter Carnell Oliver said Newsome “kind of gave him heartburn” speaking.

“We helped build this country. We haven’t gotten a proper seat at the table,” Oliver said. “We don’t have a lot of recognition … we get the bare crumbs, because there’s only a select few that have power in this community.”

“Racism is built within our laws, our institutions to oppress individuals … the first stage is to remove these statues and put them in their proper place, which is Confederate Park.”

Oliver and other speakers objected not only to Confederate monuments, but also to Jacksonville’s Andrew Jackson statue, with one likening the Jackson monument to Nazi iconography, saying that young people do not support such “racist” monuments at all.

Another monument opponent noted that Dylann Roof‘s massacre of African-Americans in Charleston led him not just to a reappraisal of monuments, but the name “Jacksonville” itself.

Local activist Wells Todd called the monuments a sign of “disrespect” to the African-American community.

“This is not happening because people are just upset about these statues,” Todd said.

“We’ve got to go back to the 1600s and understand that the rich landowners schemed to pit blacks against whites … they made the whites the slave catchers.”

“This propaganda is still here today,” Todd said, and it symbolizes a lack of respect for African-Americans.

“It is not too much to ask for to remove the statues of people who have killed and oppressed us for centuries,” Todd said, noting that Confederate Park is itself in a “poor black neighborhood.”