Solicitor Urges Gwinnett County To Move Confederate Monument

LAWRENCEVILLE, GA — Gwinnett County’s solicitor is asking its board of commissioners to take down a Confederate monument in downtown Lawrenceville “due to safety concerns.”

In a statement released late Friday afternoon, Brian Whiteside “respectfully urged” the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners to remove the monument from the grounds of the county’s historic courthouse. Instead, he suggested, it could be placed in the Gwinnett History Museum to discourage vandalism.

The monument was donated to Gwinnett County in 1993 by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Unlike DeKalb County’s recently removed Confederate monument — which was covered in graffiti — the Gwinnett statue was clean Friday except for a “Black Lives Matter” logo stenciled near its base.

Two Gwinnett County Democrats already have targeted the monument for removal. According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, county commission candidate Kirkland Carden and 7th District Congressional Candidate Nabilah Islam started an online petition to replace the statue with “a new monument acknowledging Lawrenceville’s history of lynchings.” By Friday evening, the petition had more than 1,600 signatures.

Whiteside said he was concerned that the statue could attract trouble during a protest planned for Lawrenceville for July 12.

“It’s wise to preemptively move forward and take the statue down,” Whiteside told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “A monument is merely a symbol. It needs to be in a proper setting.”