Historian reacts to city's decision to remove Confederate sculpture

Confederate monument removed from Atlanta cemetery

Families of confederate soldiers commissioned a sculptor to create a lion statue, vandals have now repeatedly damaged the statue at Oakland cemetery.

ATLANTA - An historian has a message for the city of Atlanta leaders.

Ernest Blevins contends the removal of a Confederate monument from a downtown cemetery will only encourage the kind of acts they want to prevent.

Blevins is a member of the Sons of Confederacy as well as Union soldiers.

Atlanta City Council votes to move Confederate monument

The move is to protect the monument from vandals, officials say. One of the senior members of the council expressed outrage over the criminal acts.

He saw FOX 5’s report on Tuesday about a unanimous vote on the Atlanta City Council to remove the Lion sculpture, also called the Lion of the Confederacy from the Oakland Cemetery.

The reason, according to Councilwoman Carla Smith and the other sponsors, is because of repeated acts of vandalism since 2019 aimed at defacing the 1895 piece of art.

On at least eight occasions, someone has splattered paint or chipped the sculpture using a pickaxe.

Blevins argues that removing the monument sends the message that crime succeeds.

"That's what they want," Blevins said, "to get the monument out of there."

But Councilwoman Smith said it is the intent of the council to preserve that monument because "the cemetery cannot station a guard by the Lion twenty- four hours a day.

She said more than $30,000 had been spent trying to repair the monument, which still shows significant evidence of the destruction.

It's anticipated the monument will be trucked out of the cemetery on Thursday.

The new location is a secret.

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