Will Confederate statue stay in Gulfport? Here’s what other MS counties have done.
The Bolivar County Board of Supervisors voted to remove their Confederate monument.
Lafayette’s supervisors voted to keep theirs standing in the middle of Oxford Square.
And the three white supervisors in Lowndes County reversed their votes from mid-June to keep the monument, joining their two Black colleagues for a unanimous vote to move it.
All of these votes took place on Monday, the same day the Harrison County Board of Supervisors was discussing the next steps in the process of moving the Confederate monument at the courthouse.
These boards’ votes, and earlier actions by several other counties across the state, offer potential roadmaps as the Harrison County board researches state law, considers alternative locations for the monument, and, ultimately, reaches a decision on whether the monument should stay or go.
State law prevents local governments from moving war monuments unless “a more suitable location” is found. Opinions from the attorney general have interpreted that to mean the monument can only be moved to public property.
On Monday, the Harrison County supervisors authorized board attorney Tim Holleman to research potential new locations and the likely cost of moving it.
“There are ways to deal with it, if the board chooses to deal with it,” he said during his presentation, which explained the applicable state laws.
The decision in Lowndes County rested on a creative solution to keep the monument on county property. The city of Columbus has agreed to yield to the county a small piece of Friendship Cemetery, the site of more than 2,000 graves of Confederate soldiers, for the statue to stand on.
Lowndes County Supervisor Leroy Brooks, one of two supervisors who originally voted to move the monument, told the Sun Herald details of the land transfer are still being worked out. The board still needs to talk with the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and solicit bids to conduct the actual movement of the monument.
In Bolivar County, supervisors decided not to wait before holding a vote to remove the monument.
“Our responsibility today is not to find a suitable place [for the monument to go], but to make a decision to have it removed and then we can begin to have those discussions with the appropriate entities across the state later,” Bolivar County supervisor Jacorius Liner said at the meeting.
It is also possible that Harrison County goes the way of Lafayette County, which amended its agenda at the start of its meeting on Monday to add a vote on the monument proposal. The five supervisors, all of whom are white men, voted to keep the monument in place in the middle of Oxford Square.
Harrison County Supervisor Kent Jones, who first moved to ask Holleman to look into the issue June 17, said he has not had individual conversations with his colleagues about their thinking on the monument. Jones said he anticipates Holleman will be ready to make a report next month.
“I’m hoping we can have some type of a vote one way or the other in our upcoming meetings, hopefully in August,” Jones said.
Two days after the June 17 board meeting, five Black attorneys who regularly practice at the courthouse sent a letter to the board.
“The message that… those monuments sent in 1960 is the same message that it sends today: a message of slavery, hatred and divisiveness,” wrote Joseph P. Hudson, Carol Henderson, Monica McNeely, Christopher Fisher and Warren L. Conway.
The board’s decision
The monument debate in Lowndes County became particularly emotional after Supervisor Harry Sanders made racist remarks about Black people following the June 15 vote along racial lines to leave the monument in place. A few days later, Supervisor Trip Hairston, who had voted to keep the monument, announced he was willing to reconsider.
But it wasn’t until their meeting on Monday that Brooks learned all of his white colleagues, including Sanders, would join him in voting to remove the monument. He doesn’t know why they changed their minds.
“Maybe it’s just the winds of change are blowing,” Brooks said.
Brooks said he would advise supervisors in other counties to have regular, one-on-one conversations on the issue outside of board meetings, so they can understand other perspectives.
He added that county boards need to take responsibility for developing a process to address the monuments, and be willing to lead on a contentious issue.
“There may be some people for it, some against it, but ultimately the decision rests with the board of supervisors,” he said.
In June, Washington County voted to move its Confederate monument. Forrest County decided to ask voters to decide what to do through a referendum in November. Leflore County, which had established a committee on its Confederate monument back in 2017, also voted to remove it last month.
