Will the Confederate monument come down in Harrison County? Supervisors set to vote.
The Harrison County Board of Supervisors is finally slated to take a vote on whether to remove the Confederate monument that has stood outside the county courthouse since 1911.
At the board’s Monday meeting, Supervisor Kent Jones asked for a vote on the matter to be added to the agenda for Dec. 14. The other members agreed.
Jones, the county’s only Black supervisor, first introduced a resolution to look into moving the monument back in June, as Confederate monuments around the country were coming down after George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police. The vote Monday could settle an issue that has resulted in months of debate, two heated protests at the base of the monument, and a so-far fruitless quest to find “a more suitable location” for the statue as state law requires.
In an interview Wednesday, Jones said he felt it was time for the board to make its position on the matter known to their constituents.
“I just didn’t want to go into 2021 with this thing hanging over us,” Jones said. “The most important thing is that the Harrison County Board of Supervisors make a decision, right wrong or indifferent. And I just thought the time was now to do it.”
‘A more suitable location?’
After Jones introduced his resolution on the monument in June, the supervisors discussed the issue again in July, when they asked board attorney Tim Holleman to look into options for the statue.
State law allows local governments to move war monuments only if they can find a “more suitable location.” Opinions by the state attorney general have interpreted the language to mean the statue’s new home must also be on county-owned land.
At the July meeting, Holleman said he believed the county could only move the statue if it identified a new location first. One option, he said, could be for the county to lease a small piece of property from Beauvoir, where Confederate president Jefferson Davis spent his final years and where hundreds of Confederate veterans are buried.
But Beauvoir rejected that proposal. Other cemeteries in Harrison County also have rejected the idea of hosting the monument.
When Jones raised the monument issue at Monday’s meeting, Board President Connie Rocko suggested that holding a vote was pointless unless a new location had been identified.
“If you can’t move it, if you have no place to put it, why vote to move it?” she said.
“I would like to have the board’s perspective on what they want to do,” Jones responded. “If we vote to remove it, [when] we find a more appropriate location, then a more appropriate location will be looked at.”
There is a precedent in Mississippi for the path Jones is proposing: Bolivar County supervisors voted in July to remove their Confederate monument before they identified a new home for it.
After that vote, Supervisor Jacorious Liner told the Sun Herald in September, the county reached out to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History for guidance. The Department suggested they place the monument in Concordia Cemetery.
“You don’t have to wait,” Liner said. “You can make the vote and then engage MDAH. There’s a myriad of avenues you can take to reach the same outcome. But the first step is, you need to just vote.”
Harrison County Public Information Officer Jeff Clark said that if the Board votes to remove the monument, Holleman will continue to look for a new location.
An uncertain outcome
Gulfport nonprofit leader Jeffrey Hulum III organized two protests at the monument this summer, one in June just after Jones first raised the issue with the board, and one in September.
At both protests, members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and other supporters of the monument staged a counter-protest, sitting and standing at the base of the monument as if to protect it from physical harm. Protesters and counter-protesters at both events carried guns.
At the September protest, members of the white nationalist militia group the Southern Defense Force showed up, too. They carried guns as they took up positions surrounding the demonstrators, including from above on the parking deck.
“To us, it seems like the can is being kicked down the road, because they refuse to even take up a vote on it,” Hulum said to the crowd at the September protest.
In an interview Wednesday, Hulum said he was glad the supervisors were taking a vote and that he believes they will choose to remove the monument.
“I truly believe that our Board of Supervisors is going do the right thing to make the Gulf Coast whole again,” he said. “I truly believe we have maybe one or two who will be strong proponents of not removing it, due to the national politics. But besides that, I think everybody else is going to get in line and do what’s in the best interests of the entire Gulf Coast.”
Supervisor Marlin Ladner said that he won’t be commenting on the issue until Monday’s meeting. Supervisors Beverly Martin, Rebecca Powers and Rocko did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
The Sun Herald has identified nine Mississippi counties that considered whether to move their Confederate monuments. Of the five boards of supervisors that have voted in favor of moving, all but one are majority-Black. Of the four that have chosen to keep their monuments in place, all are majority-white.
Nationally, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, 102 statues, school names, and other symbols honoring the Confederacy have been removed since George Floyd’s death. That figure doesn’t include the Mississippi monuments supervisors have voted to remove, because all of them are still standing as the counties seek approval from the MDAH and work out the logistics of the moves.
Counties where supervisors have voted to remove Confederate monuments:
Counties where Boards have chosen to keep Confederate monuments:
