Public Opinion on keeping or removing Confederate monuments

Andersonh1

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 13, 2019
Messages
580
Reaction score
742
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/costs-confederacy-special-report-180970731/

The Mississippi legislature earmarks $100,000 a year for preservation of Beauvoir....
Beauvoir is not a monument, it's a historic site and a tourist attraction. It likely does bring in money for the county or state, meaning it's a worth some money to keep up. Just my guess.

An average of $18,000 in county monies each year since 2011, plus $80,000 in state renovation funds in 2017 alone, have been devoted to this memorial to Toombs, who refused to take the oath of allegiance to the United States after the war and fled to Cuba and France to avoid arrest. Upon his return to Georgia, Toombs labored to circumscribe the freedom of African-Americans. “Give us a convention,” Toombs said in 1876, “and I will fix it so that the people shall rule and the Negro shall never be heard from.” The following year he got that convention, which passed a poll tax and other measures to disenfranchise black men.
Be careful with that "he was a racist, so why are we spending money on him?" line of thinking. We can add Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, et. al. to the same list, and down the slippery slope we would go.
 

Viper21

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 13, 2019
Messages
639
Reaction score
600
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/costs-confederacy-special-report-180970731/

The Mississippi legislature earmarks $100,000 a year for preservation of Beauvoir. In 2014, the organization received a $48,475 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for “protective measures.” As of May 2010, Beauvoir had received $17.2 million in federal and state aid related to damages caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. While nearly half of that money went to renovating historic structures and replacing content, more than $8.3 million funded construction of a new building that contains a museum and library.

The day we visited, 16 men in Confederate uniforms drilled in the quiet courtyards. Two women in hoop skirts stood to the side, looking at their cellphones. Though Alabama state parks often face budget cuts—one park had to close all its campsites in 2016—Confederate Memorial Park received some $600,000 that year. In the past decade, the state has allocated more than $5.6 million to the site. The park, which in 2016 served fewer than 40,000 visitors, recently expanded, with replica Civil War barracks completed in 2017.

Alabama laws, like those in other former Confederate states, make numerous permanent allocations to advance the memory of the Confederacy. The First White House of the Confederacy, where Jefferson Davis and his family lived at the outbreak of the Civil War, is an Italianate mansion in Montgomery adjacent to the State Capitol. The state chartered the White House Association of Alabama to run the facility, and spent $152,821 in 2017 alone on salaries and maintenance for this monument to Davis—more than $1 million over the last decade—to remind the public “for all time of how pure and great were southern statesmen and southern valor.” That language from 1923 remains on the books.

An average of $18,000 in county monies each year since 2011, plus $80,000 in state renovation funds in 2017 alone, have been devoted to this memorial to Toombs, who refused to take the oath of allegiance to the United States after the war and fled to Cuba and France to avoid arrest. Upon his return to Georgia, Toombs labored to circumscribe the freedom of African-Americans. “Give us a convention,” Toombs said in 1876, “and I will fix it so that the people shall rule and the Negro shall never be heard from.” The following year he got that convention, which passed a poll tax and other measures to disenfranchise black men.
God Bless Alabama....!

I might have to make a trip to the Yellow Hammer state to visit some of these great sites. It's been a long time since I've stood on Alabama soil.
 

jgoodguy

Webmaster
Staff member
Administrator
Joined
May 12, 2019
Messages
7,116
Reaction score
4,148
God Bless Alabama....!

I might have to make a trip to the Yellow Hammer state to visit some of these great sites. It's been a long time since I've stood on Alabama soil.
Your gas, sales and accommodation taxes will be welcomed.
 

jgoodguy

Webmaster
Staff member
Administrator
Joined
May 12, 2019
Messages
7,116
Reaction score
4,148
Yellow Hammer state
Logging may have killed off the yellow hammer

Our plant used to be the goldenrod. Sneeze

In 1927 a bill was introduced in the Alabama Legislature by Representative T. E. Martin, of Montgomery County, making the goldenrod the state flower. This became law on September 6, 1927, the same day that the Yellowhammer became the state bird​

Luckily no one really reads Alabama History

Alabama has been known as the "Yellowhammer State" since the Civil War. The yellowhammer nickname was applied to the Confederate soldiers from Alabama when a company of young cavalry soldiers from Huntsville, under the command of Rev. D.C. Kelly, arrived at Hopkinsville, KY, where Gen. Forrest's troops were stationed​

I suspect this really is postwar.
 

jgoodguy

Webmaster
Staff member
Administrator
Joined
May 12, 2019
Messages
7,116
Reaction score
4,148
Beauvoir is not a monument, it's a historic site and a tourist attraction. It likely does bring in money for the county or state, meaning it's a worth some money to keep up. Just my guess.



Be careful with that "he was a racist, so why are we spending money on him?" line of thinking. We can add Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, et. al. to the same list, and down the slippery slope we would go.

If we limited monuments to what you think are monuments there are still cleaning pigeon poop, cutting grass, insurance against misadventure and vandals, security, cleaning pollution off and so on.
 
Top