In recent days, two petitions have been launched through Change.org regarding the Confederate Monument that rests on the grounds of the old courthouse in Perry’s downtown district. Some citizens in and around the area would like to see the monument taken down, while others are pushing for its preservation. Those on each side of the debate have their line of reasoning, and while most seem to agree that the statue is a prominent fixture of historical significance; what the monument signifies is the factor wherein the division lies.
“I love the monument. I love history,” said Beverly Abney of Perry, who did her own research and wrote an article a few years ago that included information about the statue. “When I wrote that article, it made me care even more about it. I’m for leaving it there,” Abney said.
Perry native and historian, Deitrah Taylor disagrees. Taylor admits that while she doesn’t feel that it’s necessary to destroy the statue as other opponents of the monument do; she does oppose its current placement, mentioning Evergreen Cemetery as a more befitting location. Taylor’s research of one of her own ancestors by the name of Samuel Hargrove, revealed details of how he was torn away from his mother and sister and sold to a separate slave master, never to see his family members again. “When I look at that monument,” Taylor said, “these are the people who were fighting to hold him and keep him from his freedom.”
“I have a very strong opinion about putting it in Evergreen Cemetery,” Abney said as she voiced her dispute. “I think moving it there would result in the destruction of it and other monuments and markers that are there. I want to keep it, but I want it to be safe. I don’t know a place where it can be moved that it would be safe during this period,” she admitted, “but I’m definitely not for putting it in Evergreen. While I think it’s a wonderful, historical [landmark], I would hate for some angry people to go in and destroy that wonderful cemetery or any of the markers, including the entranceway, just because the monument was moved there.”
The viewpoint expressed by Taylor strongly represents that of most who are in favor of the statue’s removal. The vast majority of feedback left on the Change.org site pointed toward a belief that the statue only fans the flames of racial unrest that already runs ramped in the country today. On the contrary, Abney’s perspective is one that is shared by most who are against the memorial’s removal. Proponents of the statue, for the most part, don’t view it as a commemoration of oppression or systematic racism. For them, it’s all about historical conservation and honoring those who lost their lives during wartime.
While Perry Mayor Randall Walker is aware of the petitions that are being circulated, he said that there is little that will be gained by petitioning alone. He stated that by law, the removal of the statue is not something that he or any other local city official is authorized to permit. “We are law abiding,” Walker stated, “and it is against state law to remove any monument in the state of Georgia, period. That’s the first and foremost thing. We’re going to do what the law says we have to do.”
Walker pointed out another piece of information of which most citizens might not be aware, and that’s the fact that the monument is not an asset of the city of Perry.
“All the research that I have done, if you go back to the dedicated Houston County (book) that Bobbe wrote, she has the actual speech in there from 1908, and the speech says that (the statue) was being given to the citizens of Houston County as long as they could protect it. So it belongs to the citizens of Houston County,” Walker said.
The book that Mayor Walker referenced is titled, “A Land So Dedicated,” and the full name of the author is Bobbe Smith Hickson. In it, Hickson captures much of Houston County’s history, including a portion of the ceremony held on May 21, 1908, the day the statue was dedicated. Based upon information provided in the book, an estimated 1,500 people came from every section of Houston and adjacent counties to the formal dedication ceremony of the erection of the monument in memory of the Confederacy. A speech on that day— given by United Daughters of the Confederacy President Mrs. Holtzclaw—struck such a chord that it got published.
In part, Holtzclaw said of the monument, “… In presenting you this monument, we ask that you regard it not merely as a proud ornament to our country, nor even as a sentimental memorial to the dead past, ‘A Lost Cause.’ With it, we would give the cup of remembrance without one drop of bitterness and would have it say to you: ‘Think on these things.’ Realize with thinking men of every nationality that the principle which these Veterans held more sacred than anything earthly, the rights which they offered their hearts’ blood to defend, are the foundation stones of our government today; that when these principles shall be disregarded, these rights trampled in the dust, America will be no longer the Land of the Free.”
Another point added by Mayor Walker was, “The statue is not on our property. We don’t own the courthouse. We’ve got a sales agreement to buy it upon close at some future date when the county gets their building finished for the Board of Elections. So,” he concluded, reiterating the three important factors, “we don’t have ownership of the land, we don’t have ownership of the statue, and removing it is against the law.”
The wording of the law to which Walker referred is found in Article 1 O.C.G.A. 50-3-1. Concerning monuments, it reads: “No publicly owned monument or memorial erected, constructed, created, or maintained on the public property of this state or its agencies, departments, authorities, or instrumentalities in honor of the military service of any past or present military personnel of this state, the United States of America or the several states thereof, or the Confederate States of America or the several states thereof shall be relocated, removed, concealed, obstructed, or altered in any fashion; provided, however, that appropriate measures for the preservation, protection, and interpretation of such monuments or memorials shall not be prohibited.”
Deitrah Taylor believes that this is a law that needs to be changed. “When artifacts of this nature are placed in museums, they serve as teaching and learning tools,” she stated. “It’s not in context sitting on the courthouse lawn. When you go to Germany, you don’t see monuments to Nazis,” Taylor further stated. “But what they do have are sites that have been preserved. They are sites of conscious. When they take you through them, they tell you what was done, and in what was done, you have to have two players so they tell you about the Nazis and the experiments and the gas chambers. They tell you about the impact that had on eliminating Jewish people. You get it in context. Our monument in Perry doesn’t do that. It doesn’t tell the story. It commemorates the Confederate dead, and Evergreen Cemetery would be a place where it would be in context.”
“There has been a large amount of discussion about this,” Mayor Randall Walker told Houston Home Journal. “Everybody’s got an opinion, and the petition [for the removal of the statue] is anonymous. I don’t know who started it, where it started, or anything else. I’ve had people comment about it, and I’ve also heard about the petition on the other side to keep [the statue]. I don’t know what the score is, and I haven’t kept up with it. But this is one of those things that we don’t have jurisdiction over. If we had jurisdiction, it would be something else, but I think this is one of those things that we’ll have to work through and determine what we should or should not do with it.”
As of close of business on Thursday, the online petition to preserve Perry’s confederate memorial on the grounds of the old courthouse had received 786 of the 1,000 signatures requested. The petition to remove the monument had received 2,083 of its requested 2,500 signatures.
HHJ News
