Remove AZ Capitol Confederate Memorial, Urges Secretary Of State

PHOENIX, AZ — In Arizona's capitol, a monument to Confederate soldiers bears a plaque that reads "A nation that forgets its past has no future." The message also functions as an argument for the monument's removal, according to Secretary of State Katie Hobbs.

On Monday, Hobbs tweeted out a letter she'd sent to Andy Tobin, the director of the Arizona Department of Administration, in which she asked that he exercise his power to remove the Confederate monument from Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza.

Currently, the memorial sits alongside 30 others, including those honoring the victims of 9/11 and American soldiers who died in wars that — as Hobbs noted in her letter — were not predicated on the defense of slavery. According to a map of the plaza, the Confederate monument's immediate neighbours include memorials to law enforcement, Martin Luther King Jr., the Armenian genocide and veterans of World War I.

Although Arizona was not officially declared a state until 1912, it did play host to a single Civil War battle in 1862. In 1961, the monument was donated by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and erected in the state capitol, one of numerous similar monuments furnished to states by private groups seeking to reframe the legacy of the Civil War and its causes.

In Hobbs letter, she argued that it was a mistake to accept the monument in the first place.

"We need not honor these shameful moments to remember them," she wroe, and added in conclusion, "Removing this monument isn't a choice to erase our history, it's a choice to embrace our future. We won't heal the divisions in our country by honoring those who would divide it."