Confederate Symbols Removed From Arizona In 2020

ARIZONA — More Confederate monuments were removed in 2020 across the United States than during the five previous years combined, the Southern Poverty Law Center said in its most recent “Whose Heritage?” report that tracks public displays related to the Confederacy.

Ninety-four of the 168 Confederate symbols removed or renamed nationwide in 2020 were monuments, the report found. Fifty-eight were removed from 2015 to 2019.

In Arizona, three Confederate symbols were removed throughout 2020, according to the Law Center.

In July, Arizona's first monument to be removed was the Jefferson Davis Highway Marker. The United Daughters of the Confederacy requested state officials return the marker. The group also requested the return of the Confederate Troops Memorial that sat outside of the Arizona State Capitol for more than 50 years after it was gifted to the state. The monument was made of stones and shaped like Arizona, to commemorate Arizona Confederate troops. Its inscription said “a nation that forgets its past has no future.”

The state honored the Daughters of the Confederacy's request.

"These monuments were gifted to the state and are now in need of repair, but due to the current political climate, we believe it unwise to repair them where they are located," the group said in a letter to officials.

A third Arizona Confederate monument at Picacho Peak was stolen by thieves in late July. Picacho was the site of the westernmost battle fought in the Civil War. A stone pillar memorializes the spot. Dated 1984, a plaque dedicated to Confederate soldiers was added by the Children of the Confederacy, the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Arizona Historical Society. That plaque was stolen.

Lecia Brooks, chief of staff for the Law Center, called 2020 a “transformative” year in the movement to remove Confederate symbols nationally.

“Over the course of seven months, more symbols of hate were removed from public property than in the preceding four years combined,” Brooks said in a statement.

The Law Center began tracking the movement to take the monuments down in 2015, when a white supremacist entered a South Carolina church and killed nine Black parishioners.

Virginia by far saw the most Confederate symbols removed in 2020 with 71, the Law Center’s report found. The states with the next highest number are North Carolina with 24, and Alabama and Texas, both with 12.

Brooks praised Virginia, which changed its preservation law and, according to Brooks, “led by example” by removing so many Confederate symbols in 2020. Preservation laws in several other Southern states — including Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina — still exist and prohibit individual communities from removing certain displays.

The movement to remove these symbols from public spaces became part of the national reckoning on racial injustice following the killing last May of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for several minutes.

All but one of the 168 symbols that were removed last year came after Floyd’s death. The symbol that was removed before May 30 was Virginia’s decision to replace Lee-Jackson Day with Election Day in April.

The Law Center considers public Confederate symbols as any government buildings, monuments and statues, plaques, markers, schools, parks, counties, cities, military property and streets or highways named after anyone associated with the Confederacy.

The organization said 2,100 Confederate symbols remain in the country into 2021. Monuments account for 704 of the symbols, the Law Center said.

“These dehumanizing symbols of pain and oppression continue to serve as backdrops to important government buildings, halls of justice, public parks and U.S. military properties,” she said.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.