JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Demonstrators will set out next month on a three-day, 40-mile walk from Jacksonville to St. Augustine, aimed at calling for the removal of Confederate monuments.
"March for Change," scheduled for the third week of May, was announced during a news conference Tuesday afternoon outside City Hall in downtown Jacksonville.
One of the organizers said it's not a march against bronze, marble or metal, but it's about objecting to the racism the statues represent.
"These statues represent that symbolic behavior erected during the Jim Crow era," said Lauren Cephas, with the Black Commission.
Members of Take 'Em Down Jax and Take 'Em Down St. Augustine had several other local activist groups join them at Tuesday's announcement.
”This is a march to tell the story about racism, the racism these monuments actually represent," said Ben Frazier, with Tax 'Em Down Jax and the Northside Coalition. "We’re talking about white privilege. We’re talking about white supremacy. We’re talking about the terror of the Ku Klux Klan.”
Members of the groups and others plan to walk from Jacksonville to the Ancient City. The march will begin May 17 and end with a rally scheduled May 19 in St. Augustine.
Confederate Soldiers Memorial, a 62-foot granite shaft erected in Hemming Park in 1898 is topped by a Confederate soldier at rest. A bronze plaque at the base honors Gens. J.J. Dickinson, Kirby Smith, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. It was taken down June 9, 2020.Monument to Women of the Confederacy is a bronze sculpture of a mother with two children inside a 47-foot-tall granite rotunda in the city's Confederate Park. On the top is a second figure of a young woman clasping a half-furled Confederate flag.Camp Capt. Mooney Cemetery on Ellis Road South at Harold Avenue contains five Confederate graves owned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. It sits on the site where Confederate soldiers were killed by 500 at the Battle of Olustee in 1864.More than 250 Confederate veterans are buried in Old City Cemetery, on East Union and Cemetery streets. Many of those were from the Old Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Home opened in Jacksonville in 1893 to care for aging and disabled veterans.Yellow Bluff Fort, was built in 1862 as part of the Confederate defense of Jacksonville, is now a state park on New Berline Road. In 1950, the United Daughters of the Confederacy erected a monument there to "Confederate defenders of Jacksonville."Marker on Lenox Avenue put up by the Sons of Confederate Veterans acknowledges what was known as the Battle of Cedar Creek, or Battle of Belle Grove, fought Oct. 19, 1864.The story of the Maple Leaf, a Union transport ship sunk in the St. Johns River April 1, 1864 by a Confederate mine or torpedo, is documented in an exhibit at Mandarin Museum at Walter Jones ParkThe story of the Maple Leaf, a Union transport ship sunk in the St. Johns River April 1, 1864 by a Confederate mine or torpedo, is documented in an exhibit at Mandarin Museum at Walter Jones Park.The story of the Maple Leaf, a Union transport ship sunk in the St. Johns River April 1, 1864 by a Confederate mine or torpedo, is documented in an exhibit at Mandarin Museum at Walter Jones ParkCamp Milton, on Halsema Road along McGirts Creek, was one of the most significant fortifications built in Florida by Confederate authorities during the Civil War. Camp Milton became the eastern Florida military headquarters for the Confederate States of America, housing 6,000 infantry, 1,500 calvary and 430 field pieces.
Confederate Soldiers Memorial, a 62-foot granite shaft erected in Hemming Park in 1898 is topped by a Confederate soldier at rest. A bronze plaque at the base honors Gens. J.J. Dickinson, Kirby Smith, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. It was taken down June 9, 2020.
"In Jacksonville, St. Augustine and all around Florida, we see Confederate statues, Confederate school names romanticized, or worse, ignored by people who understand these symbols represent white supremacy," said Michael Todd, with New Florida Majority.
The groups said the walk will focus specifically on removing four monuments, two in Jacksonville and two in St. Augustine:
Monument to Women of the Confederacy in Jacksonville's Confederate Park
Florida Confederate Soldiers Memorial in Jacksonville's Hemming Park
The William Wing Loring Confederate Monument in St. Augustine
St. Augustine Foot Soldiers Monument located in the southeast corner of the Plaza de la Constitucion
"People who think that statues should stay up don't understand the real history of the United States," said Wells Todd, with the Jacksonville Progressive Coalition. "We're here to say we're going to walk from that statue to the statue in St. Augustine that's in a place where they used to sell slaves."
While the march focuses specifically on four monuments, the groups said, one of the main goals is to "connect the dots of the color line of what happened in history to what's happening today."
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Kent Justice co-anchors News4Jax's 5 p.m., 6 p.m., 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts weeknights and reports on government and politics. He also hosts "This Week in Jacksonville," Channel 4's hot topics and politics public affairs show each Sunday morning at 9 a.m.
