Throughout history, monuments have been erected to capture the moment of victory or a conquering general on horseback. Some famous examples are the raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima during WWII, or the statue of George Washington on the edge of GWU in Washington, D.C.
The Confederacy was defeated, but between 1890-1925 the United Daughters of the Confederacy financed many statues in honor of Confederate soldiers.
Communities accepted these statues and placed them on public land.
There are two controversies currently in the state of Florida. One is in the state legislature, and one is in Jacksonville.
The state bill titled “Protection of historical monuments and memorials (CS/HB 395)” is proposed by Jacksonville State Rep. Dean Black. It would require politicians who remove statues to pay for the removal with personal funds and would give the governor authority to remove the politician from office. It would also pre-empt local governments from removing historical monuments.
The state shouldn’t require that a community continue to display and pay for the upkeep of public art it no longer deems appropriate for their community. Maybe the state should have first rights to public art that is removed that was donated to the city, and if it is in the state’s interests, they place the art on state lands or museums.
This bill, which will not likely make it through the legislative process, was born from the current controversy with the new democratic mayor of Jacksonville. She planned and executed the removal of Confederate monuments in that city without council approval.
Oddly enough, the mayor of Jacksonville preempted the city council when that body refused to take action to remove statues from the Confederate monument in Springfield Park. From the mayor’s own comments, she became impatient with the council and acted on her own because she worked through a “patient process” with the council.
This is a problem. A politician can’t just do what they want if there are laws and processes in place because they worked a “patient process” and lost. She should face some sort of censure from the city council or governor for acting without approval, or one must ask, “What is she going to do when she is outvoted on something important?” Will she enact whatever she wants anyway? It is a dangerous precedent and an action that should be addressed.
I believe all monuments, confederate or not, should be treated as public art. Every community should have a public art committee made up of volunteer citizens with clear rules established by the local government on how public art is accepted, removed, rotated, etc. It should be hard to add and remove public art regardless of its content.
That does not mean that a decision by today’s public art committee can’t be changed in the future by another committee with public input, however.
Communities change. Art changes. People’s tastes change. Things that attract or repel tourists change.
Regardless of the content, every community should have a public process with which citizens know and can have certainty when it comes to their public art.
These decisions should not be made on the whims of one politician.
Jamie Miller website www.resonablearguments.com
Author
