Removing Alabama’s Confederate Monuments

In an 1861 speech, Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens made it clear that the Confederacy was established on the premise of white supremacy:

Our new government is founded upon … the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.

This philosophical bedrock of the Confederacy and the Lost Cause of slavery doesn’t merely echo today - it continues to to be enshrined and celebrated in over 130 Confederate monuments across Alabama, according to SPLC’s most recent ”Whose Heritage?” report on Confederate monuments.

The legacy of Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee is a stain on America and Alabama, and our cities and counties should have the power to remove monuments of them and others as they see fit.

This year, the Alabama Legislature can give that power back to local communities by repealing the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act, which takes away local control over decisions about Confederate monuments, memorials, school names, street names, and more.

This is what we mean when we say the effort to remove such monuments and memorials is about more than just symbolism. It’s about having a conversation on the values and beliefs we want to celebrate in our public spaces –– something each community should decide for itself. Thank you for joining us in this effort.