After calling for the relocation of a Confederate statue at the University of Mississippi, students are now demanding administrators halt the project.
When Joshua Mannery voted last year to remove a statue of a Confederate soldier that has towered over the heart of the University of Mississippi for more than a century, he understood that change takes place slowly on this historic Southern campus.
In 2014, after a freshman placed a noose around the neck of a bronze statue honoring James Meredith, the first Black student toadministrators announced a plan to offer more historic context to the Confederate statue and other landmarks.But when a plaque was unveiled in 2016, the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People pointed out it did not mention slavery as the central issue in the Civil War. A new plaque was installed, but many say it is not sufficiently prominent.
But as Mannery learned more about the history of the monument and watched the campaign to remove Confederate symbols get more buy-in as some students said they made them feel uncomfortable, he decided he had been too compliant. Meanwhile, the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. and the Southeastern Conference successfully pressured Mississippi lawmakers to finally lower its state flag dominated by the Confederate battle emblem and retire it to a museum.
“This is a monument to boys who never came home,” said Starke Miller, a white local Civil War historian and tour guide, noting that a quarter of the men from Lafayette County who enlisted with the Confederacy died.“We have over 20,000 students on campus,” he added. “If I told you 25% of those kids were dead, do you think we would put up a monument up for them?”
In 1983, a year after the college’s first Black cheerleader refused to wave the Confederate battle flag, the school announced it would no longer hand out flags at football games. That didn’t stop fans from bringing their own, but in 1997, administrators banned sticks from athletic events, thus preventing game-goers from waving them anymore.
The nickname for the university’s athletic teams, she noted, is still the Rebels and the university itself still goes by Ole Miss, a term that slaves used to refer to the wife of a plantation owner.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Democrats, Biden look to accelerate Southern political shiftFrom Mississippi retiring its state flag to local governments removing Confederate statues, a bipartisan push across the South is chipping away at reminders of the Civil War and segregation.
Read more »
Democrats, Biden look to accelerate Southern political shiftDemocratic Party leaders are hoping the current national reckoning on race that is sweeping away many reminders of the Civil War also translates into a fundamental shift at the ballot box in the South.
Read more »
Mississippi could drop Jim Crow-era statewide voting processLater this year, the state's voters in Mississippi will decide whether to dump a statewide election process that dates to the Jim Crow era.
Read more »
Protesters tore down, threw a statue of Christopher Columbus into Baltimore's Inner HarborProtesters mobilized by the death of George Floyd at the hands of police have called for the removal of statues of Columbus. They say the Italian explorer is responsible for the genocide and exploitation of native peoples in the Americas.
Read more »
As monuments fall, Confederate carving has size on its sideAs statues of figures from America's slave-owning past come down across the nation, the largest Confederate monument ever crafted may outlast them all.
Read more »