The second paragraph contains language that may offend some readers.

Ever since Camille Bennett started her campaign to relocate a Confederate statue from outside the county courthouse in her hometown of Florence, Alabama, she has seen it all: threats, violent online messages and intimidation attempts.

There was the suggestion from a white pastor that somebody wire her mouth shut; then there was the time a white motorcyclist sped towards her and two boys during a racial justice march last summer, telling her to "get the fuck out the way."

Bennett has always received pushback for her activism in her small conservative community, but she says her most harrowing experience happened in 2017, when five Ku Klux Klansmen (KKK) in hoods and robes heckled her at a local park during a LGBT Pride event she'd been asked to address.

"I was terrified. I was extremely intimidated," said Bennett, the only Black speaker at the park event. But, she added, "the work brings me an immense sense of joy. I don't let the threats define me."

Lori Feldman, 42, a white woman who supports the removal of the statue honoring soldiers of the pro-slavery Confederacy and moved to Alabama in 2017 from Brooklyn, New York, was present when Klansmen heckled Bennett at a park.

"It was clear they wanted to make a statement of hate," Feldman said of the KKK, a white supremacist group that has terrorized Black communities for over a century. "There were kids who were crying, who were scared."

But intimidation isn't the only obstacle for those committed to removing Confederate symbols. Bennett, like many other Black civil rights advocates and their allies, continues to face legal and political roadblocks at the state, county and city level.

"MY PEOPLE SUFFERED"

Bennett, 43, whose mother is a minister and who is a minister herself, founded the nonprofit Project Say Something in 2014 to push for racial justice for Black Americans.

One of its core missions has been to get Florence to confront the meaning of Eternal Vigil, the ghostly white marble statue of a nameless Confederate private in front of Lauderdale county's courthouse.

During the Civil War of the 1860s, Southern states in the Confederacy fought the North to preserve their economy based on chattel slavery of captive Africans and their descendants born in America.

Over 300 monuments to the Confederacy stand in America, mostly in the South, especially in Alabama, Georgia, North and South Carolina, and Tennessee, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group.

Many Confederate monuments were erected well after the war - Florence's statue was completed in 1903 - after Reconstruction when white Southern segregationists were working to reverse Black political and economic gains. The monuments have long been symbolic for white supremacists like the KKK, which was founded by Confederate veterans.

The county turned down a proposal by Bennett to erect next to the monument a statue of Dred Scott, who lived in Florence for 10 years in the 1800s and whose effort as an enslaved man to gain freedom led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling. After her proposal was rejected, Bennett called for relocating Eternal Vigil to a Confederate cemetery less than a mile from the courthouse.

But the Lauderdale County Commission's five members, all white Republican men, refused, citing a 2017 state law prohibiting the removal or relocation of monuments.

Camille Bennett poses for a photo in front of the confederate statue that she is trying to have moved to the confederate cemetery in Florence, Alabama, U.S., May 19, 2021. REUTERS/Lawrence Bryant

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That law is part of a larger effort by GOP lawmakers in several states, including Georgia and West Virginia, to prevent the removal of statues following a nationwide movement to topple Confederate monuments. The Republican-backed bill passed in the Alabama legislature despite the opposition of legislators, such as Thomas Jackson of Thomasville, a Black Democrat who spoke of what Confederate statues symbolize for Black Americans.

"My people suffered," Jackson said during debate on the proposal. "Don't bring back those harsh memories that we went through so much to overcome."

Josh Dodd, who is white and chairman of the Lauderdale County Republican Party, is opposed to moving Eternal Vigil. "It's very important to a lot of people to remember the past and to remember those who died on both sides," he said.

The United Daughters of the Confederacy, which funded Florence's statue at the turn of the 20th century, says it adamantly rejects removal.

The group advocates "that all such monuments remain in their original location with their original messaging," its attorney, Jack Hinton, wrote in a letter to an Alabama state senator last year.

The original messaging around Eternal Vigil, as demonstrated by one initial 1903 speech at its unveiling, was explicitly against social equality for Black people in the South.

"OBSTACLES KEEP CHANGING"

Amid nationwide protests against racism following the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer in Minnesota in May 2020, the movement to take down Confederate symbols accelerated. In 2020, over 160 Confederate monuments were taken down, compared to 58 between 2015 and 2019, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Bennett and supporters - Black and white - began marching in central Florence last summer to demand the relocation of Eternal Vigil after Floyd's murder. In July 2020, three Lauderdale County residents filed suit, demanding that the statue remain in place. Their suit calls the statue an "historic and irreplaceable monument."

In October 2020, Florence City Council unanimously passed a resolution backing the relocation of the statue to the cemetery, citing "concerned citizens" who want it relocated and the fact that some residents have agreed to pay the costs of removal. The city built a concrete base in the cemetery for the statue.

But because the statue sits on county property, the city asked the county for permission to remove it.

Danny Pettus, who is white and chairs the county commission, told Reuters he would never support the statue's relocation, citing the 2017 state monument preservation law. Violating the law could result in a $25,000 fine.

Andy Betterton was elected mayor of Florence in November 2020 on a promise to relocate the statue. But now Betterton and members of the county commission say their hands are tied because of the civil lawsuit. The suit is now with a circuit court judge, who has ordered a stay on all actions involving the statue until the litigation is resolved.

Betterton declined to be interviewed by Reuters. In a statement he said the lawsuit has constrained him, but added: "The removal and relocation of the statue is definitely one of my priorities, and I feel optimistic that we will see it removed."

For Bennett the delays feel like obstruction. "There have been several obstacles, and the obstacles keep changing. So you're going to be suspicious that everyone is working together so this monument is not removed," she said.

But she added: One way or another, we will prevail. We will not stop.

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Death threats and the KKK: Inside a Black Alabaman's fight to remove a Confederate statue - Reuters

Service academies are some of the first stops for the Defense Departments renaming commission for bases, ships and more that honor the Confederacy, and according to research by the Southern Poverty Law Center, those campuses are home to eight symbols that should be considered.

They include a portrait of alumnus Gen. Robert E. Lee along with Lee Barracks, Lee Gate, Lee Road and the Robert E. Lee Memorial Award and Beauregard Place at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York.

Buchanan House, Buchanan Road and Maury Hall are locations connected to the Confederacy at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

Symbols of white supremacy should never have been associated with the military because they glorify a system of racial oppression and exclusion, Lecia Brooks, SPLCs chief of staff, said in a Wednesday release. As I testified during a Congressional hearing earlier this year, there is no reason to wait three years to rename the Armys 10 bases, nor the militarys numerous ships, roads, buildings, and memorials named after Confederate leaders. The time to act is now.

Brooks went on to call the displays dehumanizing and oppressive, suggesting that they are directly linked to white supremacist activity in the military.

The renaming commission, stood up this year as required by the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, has until the fall of 2023 to complete renaming projects. The first step is to compile the list.

Visiting West Point is part of that plan, though the military departments will be responsible for submitting their official lists to the commission.

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The memorials at West Point and the Naval Academy are not necessarily under consideration, Army spokeswoman Cynthia Smith told Military Times on Wednesday.

Though the commission is looking beyond base and ship names, as there is no official list compiled yet, she could not say whether Lees portrait, for instance, might be removed from West Point.

Concurrently, SPLC has started its own project, compiling places and things named for the Confederacy.

There are 84 on the list so far, though they include items at The Citadel and the Virginia Military Institute, which are not DoD-affiliated, as well as public memorials in New York City and New Orleans.

Continued here:

There are 9 Confederate memorials among the military academies, but their fate is unknown - Military Times

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By Carol McKibben

I love taking walks in my Carmel neighborhood where I have lived for more than 20 years with my husband and various members of our family. The eclectic style of homes nestled warren-like in weird neighborhood collections of old cottages, interspersed with modern architecture and warm, friendly community, always makes me appreciate this place even beyond its proximity to one of the most beautiful beaches anywhere on earth.

As a historian, I appreciate Carmels equally eclectic past. Once a great artist colony, it also became an intellectual and political center for Lincoln Steffens and so many others on the left, John Steinbeck among them. The Works Progress Administration installed an office in Carmel to help its majority population of writers and artists find work during the Great Depression. When homophobia raged in America during the Cold War (and into the present), the LBGTQ community found refuge in this liberal-minded town.

It is only very recently that Carmel has been aligned in the public mind with other communities of predominantly white elites. Yet those of us who live in the town know that the community of independent thinkers remains very much a part of life here. When I was out for a walk one day in my neighborhood, I realized with full force how twisted that spirit of nonconformity could become.

I stopped cold in my tracks when I saw a Confederate flag flying from the front porch of my neighbors house; it was a person I routinely exchanged pleasantries with, but clearly someone I didnt know at all.

We are used to seeing that flag brandished in everything from marches for white supremacy to the recent attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6. It is not a benign political symbol. Rather, it is a chilling reminder of the worst of America, one exemplified by hate and violence.

The Confederate flag symbolized the effort in the mid-19th century by people living in states located largely in the American South to sustain and spread an economic system based on the enslavement of other human beings. They justified their view by focusing on melanin in a persons skin and on certain facial features. Humans with more melanin in their skin than others (or were thought to have even a tiny bit more) could be treated as though they were farm animals or farm equipment rather than as human beings. People with more melanin became nonentities, invisible as individual human beings, and were forced to labor unremittingly under the most horrific and cruel conditions without compensation until they died. They were routinely tortured.

Slaveholders treated slave families with ruthless indifference; casually and unceremoniously split them up, sold off individual members like livestock, tore babies and children from their parents, sold them to strangers, and sent away without regard for their vulnerability, health or safety, just like one would treat farm animals or mere commodities. As a result of this horrendous cruelty and cold unconcern, slave families were lost to one another forever. This is what slavery was and worse. None of this is in dispute. It represents one of the most shameful periods in American history and it lasted for hundreds of years.

The enforced slavery of one group of human beings by another based on melanin levels and facial features was both absurd and fiercely defended because it produced great wealth. Slavers went to war and attempted to destroy the entire nation to maintain it with the Confederate flag as an emblem. They even persuaded poorer people, those who looked more like them, to fight too, even when the less well-off did not benefit economically from slave ownership. The Civil War was not about states rights. It was a war fought over whether or not America ought to maintain the evil of slavery as a foundation of its economy. As a country, we decided against it.

The harm slavery produced has lasted for generations and is still with us. It led directly to the development of ideologies such as scientific racism, a pseudo-science that perpetuated the ludicrous and farcical notion of innate inequality based on bizarre definitions of physical appearance.

Scientific racism in turn led to the eugenics movement, which became the rationale for all sorts of policies such as anti-miscegenation laws, citizenship and immigration exclusions, and land ownership restrictions, redlining in cities and towns, racial exclusions in neighborhoods and weirdly assigning property value to the perceived racial identity of the inhabitants. These policies became normative. Although many have been overturned, the absurd ideology behind them persists, invisible and usually denied by those who benefit most from systems of inequality that place people with the least melanin in their skin at the top of a human hierarchy and those with the most at the very bottom.

It will take generations working together to undo the untold damage that these almost incomprehensible, insurmountable wrongs did to millions of people and their children just because they had more melanin in their skin. However, the undoing and rebuilding does not just happen magically over time or just because slavery officially ended or just because we believe that we became more modern and liberal in our thinking.

As a community, we need to challenge these inequalities as we condemn and end this hateful representation of our past embodied in the Confederate flag.

We are in a time of our history in which we cant allow for these displays of racism to go unchallenged, so after some thought I knocked on my neighbors door to ask him to bring it down. At first he seemed reluctant to do it, but eventually the flag went down. Those of us who have benefited the most from this countrys ugly past have a duty to advocate for a more inclusive, fair United States of America.

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The Confederate Flag A Symbol of Twisted Thinking - Voices of Monterey Bay

Hanssen, A. & Raskovich, A., Does Vertical Integration Spur Investment? Casting Actors to Discover Stars During the Hollywood Studio Era, Journal of Law and Economics (November 2020).

Southern streets

An economist has found that Black people who live in areas with more streets named after Confederate generals are less likely to be employed, are more likely to be in low-status jobs, and have lower wages, relative to whites, even controlling for other socio-economic characteristics of the individual and the studied areas.

Williams, J., Confederate Streets and Black-White Labor Market Differentials, American Economic Association Papers and Proceedings (May 2021).

Borderline deterrence

In surveys conducted in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico while Donald Trump was president, some participants were told that US Immigration had apprehended thousands of their countrymen, while other participants were told not just about the apprehensions but also that their countrymen were placed in long-term detention or denied court hearings. Mentioning those harsh immigration measures made no difference in the share of respondents who intended to migrate.

Ryo, E., The Unintended Consequences of US Immigration Enforcement Policies, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (May 2021).

Born in the wrong year

Examining data on kids in Chicago who were followed into young adulthood, Harvard sociologists found that those born in the early to mid-1980s were more likely to be arrested than those born in the mid-1990s. This was explained not by changes in behavioral, family, or neighborhood characteristics but by broader changes in crime and policing as both crime rates and enforcement fell after the 1990s, especially for drug offenses.

Neil, R. & Sampson, R., The Birth Lottery of History: Arrest Over the Life Course of Multiple Cohorts Coming of Age, 19952018, American Journal of Sociology (March 2021).

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Social Studies: Hollywood economics, the power of Confederate street names, and untimely arrests - The Boston Globe

ALLENDALE, MI -- Now that a citizen committee has recommended replacing a controversial Civil War statue in Allendale, some activists and community members are calling on township leaders to immediately remove it.

Holly Huber, co-founder of the Michigan Association of Civil Rights Activists which has advocated for the statues removal for months, thanked the committee for its recommendation during the Allendale Township Board of Trustees meeting Monday, May 24.

I hope that the board takes that into consideration and votes to immediately remove those statues, Huber said. Theyre offensive and Allendale should not have a Confederate statue any longer.

The Civil War statue, which joins other sculptures representing veterans of U.S. wars in the townships Garden of Honor, depicts a Union and Confederate soldier standing back-to-back with a Black enslaved child at their feet.

On Monday, the townships Garden of Honor Memorial Committee unveiled its final recommendation for the controversial statue: remove the Civil War statue and replace it with one featuring three diverse Union soldiers standing side-by-side.

The soldiers would be Black, white and American Indian, and their likenesses would be based on real West Michiganders who fought for the North in the Civil War.

Related: Confederate soldier statue that drew controversy in West Michigan should be replaced, committee recommends

No one who called in to the Allendale Township Board of Trustees virtual meeting Monday opposed the recommendation. The committees recommendation wasnt made public until the meeting.

Its now up to the township trustees to decide if they want to adopt the recommended changes, partially adopt them, modify them or reject them entirely. That vote will potentially happen at their next meeting on June 14.

Our Board of Trustees is going to take three things into consideration, Township Supervisor Adam Elenbaas told MLive/The Grand Rapids Press on Tuesday of the boards upcoming decision. We need to be able to voice what our community believes and what our community wants to happen. We need to take into consideration our own personal opinions as board members. And we need to take into consideration whats best for the community.

If trustees approve to replace the current statue, it wasnt immediately clear if it would be taken down in the interim while the township goes through the process of finding an artist and having them sculpt the proposed replacement.

The current statue likely wouldnt be destroyed or sold to a private resident. Instead, some options include giving it to a local museum or historical society.

Allendale Township is located about 12 miles west of Grand Rapids and is home to about 26,700 residents. Its also home to Grand Valley State University. The universitys president last summer urged the township to relocate the statue.

Related: How this Confederate soldier statue became part of a veterans memorial in Michigan

Trustees on Monday expressed thanks for the committees work but none directly opined on whether they supported or opposed the recommendations. The recommendations also included adding statues at the Garden of Honor park representing soldiers from three more wars and informational QR codes to the plaques.

You guys just blew me away, Trustee Candy Kraker told the committee members. That is absolutely amazing, all the work that you did. I am just flabbergasted.

For nearly a year, numerous activists and residents have called on the township to remove the statue, with some calling it racist and demeaning to Black people and still more saying a Confederate soldier has no place among honored veterans.

The calls for removal drew pushback from other residents and counterprotesters. Some residents were concerned those who wanted the statue removed didnt live in Allendale, with Treasurer David VanderWall at one meeting saying he isnt one to be bullied or bow to outside pressure.

Some said removing the statue would be erasing history and the lessons it has to teach us.

The debate over the statue began when the Michigan Association of Civil Rights Activists requested the township remove the statue. The 23-year-old memorial was one of numerous public statues and symbols of the Confederacy that faced renewed scrutiny late last spring as demonstrations against police brutality and racial inequality swept the nation.

Mitch Kahle, a co-founder of the group, told trustees during their virtual meeting Monday this whole situation, which included numerous protests and counterprotests over the statues presence, couldve been avoided if they listened to what activists recommended from the get-go.

We recommended that you simply remove the Confederate statue and remove the enslaved child and put a statue of an African-American Union soldier, like Ben Jones, Kahle said. And guess what youre going to end up doing? Exactly what we said one year ago today. So move forward, get rid of the offensive statues or, to be honest, Allendale is going to be

His public comment ended mid-sentence due to the time limit.

The Allendale Township Board of Trustees formed the Garden of Honor Memorial Committee in June, tasking them to examine the statue, and the park it sits in, over small-scale frank conversations with multiple perspectives and then present trustees with recommended changes.

The committee on Monday also recommended the township add statues representing veterans of the MexicanAmerican War, War of 1812 and the U.S. War on Terror.

Additionally, the committee recommended upgrading signage on all of the statues to include QR codes that people could scan with their smartphones and be directed to informational web pages.

Ive been able to have thousands of conversations with people that I wouldnt normally have had, Elenbaas said. The protest leads to those conversations. So I wouldnt say the protests arent so much the influential component, but its the conversations after that follow when people take the time to sit down and express their viewpoints. And I can tell you that I have personally taken a lot out of those conversations. My viewpoints have been widened over the past several months.

Jessica VanBlaricum-Miller, during public comment, questioned why there needed to be a white Union soldier in the proposed new statue.

Why is it that a Black Union soldier cannot be the only one standing and representing? Why include a white man? What purpose does it serve? VanBlaricum-Miller asked. By doing so we are still white centering, which is perpetuating the racism that continues to happen in Allendale. We should allow (Black, Indigenous and people of color) to have a space without needing the support of their oppressor.

The proposed new statue featuring white, Black and American Indian Union soldiers would have the Black soldiers appearance based on Benjamin Jones, an escaped slave who settled in Ottawa County and served as a Union soldier.

The white soldier would be based on Hiram Knowlton, and the American Indian soldier would be based on Louis Little Feather Miskoguon. The statue wouldnt include the soldiers names.

Read more:

Billboard taken down after calling for removal of Confederate statue

New research uncovers the secret history of Black people killed by Detroit police

After nearly five decades in prison, man who denied role in killing to go free

More here:

Allendale shouldnt have a Confederate statue any longer: Activists call for its immediate removal - MLive.com