JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – On Wednesday, symbols of the Confederacy at Jacksonville’s Springfield Park were plucked from their perches, loaded onto a flatbed truck, and transported to a nearby warehouse.
The surprise move drove some to celebrate and drove others to anger or heartache.
“It’s a representation of my ancestry,” said Wayde Alford, who is with a group called Save Southern Heritage.
Northside Coalition volunteer JoAnn Brooks had a different take. She said, to her, the monument represented, “a lost cause, hatred, [and] division.”
According to Florida State College at Jacksonville, the monument was erected in 1915 as a tribute to the women of the Confederacy. It was commissioned by the Florida Division of United Confederate Veterans, and the state legislature paid for about half of it.
“It’s about the women who stayed home, took care of their homes and their farmsteads...women who couldn’t even vote,” Alford said. “They stayed home and did what they did while the men were away, and some of those men were conscripted.”
Some people, including a local historian, contend that the statue was intended to intimidate in the Jim Crow South.
“That’s a typical talking point from the left,” Alford said.
Brooks said she believes the removal of the statues could be the start of change.
“It’s like a chain being broken, where we can now grow and develop and see what Jacksonville can do together so that we can be a better place where we can invite our family and friends,” she said.
It’s not clear what will happen to the statutes.
News4JAX asked people out at the removal site on Wednesday what they would like to see happen and received a range of answers, including putting the statues in a museum, melting them down, and putting them back in a place of prominence at Springfield Park or elsewhere.