NEW YORK — Before turning against the U.S. military to command the Confederate army, Robert E. Lee served as the superintendent of West Point, the hallowed military academy that produced patriots like Ulysses S. Grant, Douglas MacArthur and Dwight Eisenhower.
U.S. Military Academy at West Point via AP
This photo shows three bronze panels at one of the entrances to Bartlett Hall at West Point that depict the history of the United States.
But in the coming days, the storied academy will take down a portrait of Lee dressed in his Confederate uniform from its library, where it has been hanging since the 1950s, and place it in storage. It will also remove the stone bust of the Civil War’s top southern general at Reconciliation Plaza. And Lee’s quote about honor will be stripped from the academy’s Honor Plaza.
The moves are part of a Department of Defense directive issued in October ordering the academy to address racial injustice and do away with installations that “commemorate or memorialize the Confederacy.”
That includes a trio of bronze panels, measuring 11 feet tall and 5 feet wide, that depict significant events and figures in U.S. history, including Benjamin Franklin and Clara Barton. But the oversized plaques, dedicated in 1965, not only featured Lee and other supporters of the Confederacy but an image of an armed man in a hood, with “Ku Klux Klan” written below.
The congressional Naming Commission, which initiated the changes at the academy, noted “there are clearly ties in the KKK to the Confederacy.”
In a message posted on the academy’s website, Lt. Gen. Steve Gilland, the academy’s superintendent, said it would begin complying with the commission’s recommendations during the holiday break.
“We will conduct these actions with dignity and respect,” he said.
The United States Military Academy, as West Point is officially known, was established in 1809 along the bank of the Hudson River in upstate New York.
The school has about 4,600 cadets, two-thirds of them white and about 13% Black, according to federal data.
West Point was not the only installation under scrutiny by the congressional commission. It also recommended that eight other installations address symbols of the racist past.
The U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, renamed buildings and roads that memorialized Confederate admirals or those who sought to perpetuate Black enslavement.
More than a half-dozen of the commission’s recommendations for West Point involve Lee, who graduated second in his class in 1829 and later served as superintendent.
The commission recommended that Lee Barracks, Lee Road, Lee Gate, Lee Housing Area and Lee Area Child Development Center all be renamed.
The report said Lee’s armies “were responsible for the deaths of more United States soldiers than practically any other enemy in our nation’s history.”
Two other Confederate officers in the commission’s crosshairs were West Point grads P.G.T. Beauregard and William Hardee. The panel called for Beauregard Place and Hardee Place to be renamed.
It was not until the early 1930s when West Point began installing Confederate memorials, the commission noted, saying it did so under pressure from the revisionist “Lost Cause” movement that sought to recast the causes of the Civil War and depict those who fought for the Confederacy as deserving of honor for their sacrifices.
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Epics // Getty Images
Seventy-three Confederate monuments were removed or renamed in 2021, leaving 723 such monuments standing in the United States. The Southern Poverty Law Center's “Whose Heritage?” data project counted more than 2,000 Confederate memorials throughout the country today, including statues, parks, schools, streets, highways, or practically any structure which, in one way or another, honors a Confederate figure or the whole coalition of seceded states.
Stacker analyzed the SPLC’s research and ranked states according to which have the most Confederate memorials, Data was last updated Jan. 21, 2022 (released Feb. 1).
Those in favor of keeping Confederal memorials in place cite the need to preserve American history when in fact, the vast majority of these monuments were erected long after the Civil War’s conclusion in 1865. The first half-dozen Confederate monuments were erected on the heels of the Civil War; but over the next four decades, six or fewer monuments went up yearly. Then, installations surged: In 1911 alone, 49 Confederate monuments were erected around the country, coinciding with peak Jim Crow laws designed to disadvantage Blacks and perpetuate segregation.
Other surges appeared throughout the first half of the 20th century, with pronounced increases in Confederate monuments going up throughout the civil rights movement and smaller increases at the turn of the 21st century and immediately following the election of President Barack Obama in 2008.
Dozens of Confederate memorials around the United States were taken down on the heels of a 2015 shooting by Dylann Roof at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, that killed nine Black parishioners including the church’s pastor. Two years later, in defiance of plans to take down a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia, hundreds of self-described neo-Nazis and white supremacists gathered for a “Unite the Right” rally. Clashes at that rally with counter-protesters hit an apex when Alex Fields Jr. drove his car into a crowd of counter-protestors, injuring 19 people and killing one woman named Heather Heyer. At the end of the August event, three were dead, dozens injured, and the ongoing debate over whether Confederate monuments ought to be protected or removed remained unresolved.
The debate gained renewed fervor in 2020 following the May 25 murder of George Floyd. Protests in cities and small towns around the country and world included acts of civil disobedience such as covering Confederate monuments in graffiti or toppling Confederate statues and other monuments perceived as symbols of oppression and slavery. Across the United States, pressure mounted to take such monuments away and out of the public eye, with dozens of municipalities taking action to do so. In total, 157 Confederate memorials were removed throughout the country in 2020.
Various groups stand by claims that these memorials serve as important historical markers; others argue the memorials glorify white supremacists and ignore those who were hurt, enslaved, and killed by the scourge of racism in this country. Some historians suggest looking at how post-war Germany has handled its past: Concentration camps serve as museums that detail the horrors that occurred therein so people never forget what happened; with nary a Hitler or SS statue to be found. Instead, statues and monuments memorialize victims who were lost as well as those who survived.
Keep reading to find out where the most Confederate monuments still stand, and to learn about recent debates over what to do with them.
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Jasperdo // Flickr
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 1
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Picacho Pass (1 symbol)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 4
After calls for Gov. Doug Ducey to take down Confederate monuments in the state capitol, and at least one instance of vandalism, two Confederate monuments in Arizona were removed in 2020 and returned to the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
[Pictured: The Confederate Troops Memorial at Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza in Phoenix, Arizona.]
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duckeesue // Shutterstock
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 1
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Georgetown (1 symbol)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 0
A petition launched in June 2020 called for the removal of the Confederate monument and flag standing in Delaware outside the Nutter Marvel Carriage Museum in Georgetown—the only such memorial in the state. The monument and flag have been on the site since 2007.
The Georgetown Historical Society, which owns the property the monument is sitting on, does not in fact own or maintain the installation—although funding for that group was pulled in 2019 amid objections from Delaware Sen. Trey Paradee over the monument and flag.
[Pictured: A general view of historic buildings in Georgetown, Delaware.]
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Jon Roanhaus // Wikimedia Commons
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 1
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Wyacondah (1 symbol)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 1
The Bentonsport monument wasn’t put up until 2007 to honor a Confederate general who was born there. The memorial has been controversial since its installation, with renewed pushes for its removal following the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville.
In Bloomfield, three rocks mark the furthest point reached by Confederate soldiers coming out of the South. That marker was installed in 2005.
[Pictured: A general view of Bentonsport, Iowa.]
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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 1
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Corydon (1 symbol)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 2
Indiana’s one Confederate marker stands in memory of the 11 men who were killed and 40 who were injured while fighting in “Morgan’s Raid,” Gen. John Hunt Morgan’s Confederate Cavalry Division that overwhelmed Union Troops during the Battle of Corydon on July 9, 186. It was the only battle fought in the state and was won by the Confederacy.
Gen. Morgan was known for his violent and chaotic raids, which included taking prisoners, stealing supplies, extorting money, burning buildings, and breaking telegraph and railroad lines in Union territories. Morgan’s Raid was the Civil War’s longest cavalry raid, carving a path of destruction across more than 1,000 miles.
[Pictured: A historic marker in downtown Corydon, Indiana.]
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Plazak // Wikimedia Commons
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 2
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Fort Craig, Mesilla (1 symbol each)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 3
A Confederate monument several miles from the Fort Craig National Historic Site in New Mexico was erected by the Texas Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1936. The monument purports to be in memory of Confederate soldiers known and unknown who died in the Battle of Valverde during the Civil War on Feb. 21, 1862.
The Confederacy won the Battle of Valverde, but not without 36 deaths, 150 injuries, and the loss of supply wagons that were burned. Confederate troops from that battle went on to capture Albuquerque and Santa Fe before being defeated by Union soldiers at Glorieta Pass March 26–28, 1862.
In addition to battles over Confederate monuments, Native Americans in New Mexico in June successfully pushed for the removal of two statues depicting Spanish conquistadors.
[Pictured: Former officer’s quarters at the Fort Craig National Historic Site in New Mexico.]
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Jerry Edmundson // Flickr
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 2
- City with the most Confederate symbols: McConnellsburg (2 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 4
Two road markers installed in 1929 and 1930 (respectively) in McConnellsburg, Pennsylvania, pay homage to Confederate soldiers.
The marker on U.S. 522 commemorates Confederate soldiers who escaped to the town via the nearby mountain following a fire in nearby Chambersburg in 1864 that was authorized by Brigadier Gen. John McCausland. The Rebel officers hid out in a farmhouse in McConnellsburg and the soldiers stayed nearby while keeping watch for Union troops. On PA-16, a marker denotes where two Confederate soldiers were buried after being killed in 1863 in what was supposedly the first Civil War battle in Pennsylvania.
Both markers came under fresh scrutiny in 2017 following the Unite the Right Rally and its counter-protests in Charlottesville.
[Pictured: A historic marker on the town square in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.]
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Allyn // Wikimedia Commons
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 2
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Bellingham, East Wenatchee (1 symbol each)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 2
East Wenatchee, Washington, is home to Lee Elementary School, named in 1955 for Gen. Robert E. Lee at the same time other Confederate monuments and memorials were going up around the country in defiance of the civil rights movement. There was much debate in 2015 over whether to change the name, but the community opted to keep it as-is.
In Bellingham, Pickett Road was named for George Pickett, who resigned from the U.S. military when the Civil War broke out and became a colonel for the Confederacy. And just outside Ridgefield in Clark County, Jefferson Davis Park pays homage to the president of the Confederate States of America. The monuments there once marked the northern and southern points of State Route 99. The park is owned by a group called Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Following 2017's Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and related counter-protests, the Sons of Confederate Veterans said they had received multiple death threats along with calls to remove the monuments.
[Pictured: Whatcom Creek Falls run under the Prospect Creek Bridge (formerly Pickett Street Bridge) in Bellingham, Washington.]
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Marty Nelson // Shutterstock
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 3
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Boise, Boise National Forest, Leesburg (1 symbol each)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 1
The Cathedral of the Rockies in Boise announced in June 2020 that it would remove a stained glass window depicting Gen. Robert E. Lee that was installed in 1960. Outside the city, Robert E. Lee Creek and Robert E. Lee Campground have received renewed criticisms and calls for renaming.
Idaho is also home to the city of Leesburg, dedicated in 1855 and named for the Confederate general.
[Pictured: A view of the First United Methodist Cathedral of the Rockies in Boise, Idaho.]
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Sean Pavone // Shutterstock
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 4
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Pendleton (4 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 0
Oregon's state board of education in September 2020 to ban hate symbols—including the Confederate flag—from the more than 1,200 public schools located there. In Pendleton, stamps remain on old street markers named for Confederate figures.
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Sam Wagner // Shutterstock
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 5
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Breckenridge (5 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 0
A scarred Virginia battle flag, captured by a Minnesota private in 1863 during the Battle of Gettysburg, is housed at the Minnesota Historical Society. Virginia officials have asked for and demanded the flag's return many times over the years.
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Montanabw // Wikimedia Commons
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 6
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Diamond City, Dillon (2 symbols each)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 1
Almost three years after its removal, Montana in April 2020 replaced its Confederate Memorial Fountain with The Equity Fountain. The monument to the Confederacy stood for more than a century but had come under fire along with hundreds of others following the violence that erupted in Charlottesville in 2017.
Elsewhere in the state, other memorials remain, including the Jeff Davis Creek in Dillon.
[Pictured: The Confederate Memorial Fountain in Helena, Montana, photographed in April 2017.]
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Bruce Faling // Flickr
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 6
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Milford (3 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 1
Ohio lawmakers in June 2020 refused to ban Confederate flags and other symbols at county fairs, but Gov. Mike DeWine said he wasn’t opposed to removing Confederate statues and memorials throughout the state.
The Robert E. Lee Dixie Highway Monument was removed in 2017 after standing for almost a century; several roads named for Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson remain in the Southwest corner of the state.
[Pictured: A historical marker at Camp Chase, Columbus, Ohio.]
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TASOS KATOPODIS/AFP via Getty Images
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 7
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Baltimore (4 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 11
Several of the Confederate monuments throughout Maryland are hardly historic; with some dedicated in the 1990s and early 2000s. In June 2020, calls were renewed to remove Confederate memorials throughout Maryland, including a Civil War plaque that was installed in the State House in 1964.
Former Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake in 2015 created a commission to review all Confederate monuments in the city and make recommendations including preservation in place, the addition of new signage, relocation, or removal.
Following the 2017 Unite the Right rally, four Confederate statues were removed from Baltimore and a statue in Annapolis depicting a Supreme Court justice who had defended slavery was taken down.
[Pictured: A family takes photos at the Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson monument base in Wyman Park Dell in Baltimore, Maryland, after it was removed by the city on Aug. 16, 2017.]
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Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 7
- City with the most Confederate symbols: West Point (5 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 3
A number of Confederate memorials were removed from New York City following the 2017 Unite the Right rally. These included a plaque installed in 1912 denoting the location where Gen. Robert E. Lee planted a tree in Brooklyn, and sculptures of Lee (dedicated in 1923) and fellow Confederate Gen. Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson (dedicated in 1957) that stood in Bronx Community College’s Hall of Fame for Great Americans. In 2018, a statue in Central Park of J. Marion Sims—a famous 19th-century doctor and gynecologist who conducted experimental surgeries on enslaved women between 1845 and 1849—was also taken down.
Amid the swell of protests following the death of George Floyd, several other monuments throughout the city came under renewed scrutiny including the statue of President Theodore Roosevelt in front of the American Museum of Natural History. That monument, depicting the former president flanked by a Native American man and an African man, was finally removed in January of 2022.
[Pictured: City workers remove a statue of J. Marion Sims from Central Park in New York City on April 17, 2018.]
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Mark Wilson // Getty Images
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Albert Campbell // Shutterstock
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 10
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Fort Bragg (4 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 12
Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks in California announced in late June of 2020 that all references to Gen. Robert E. Lee would be removed from printed and online materials and exhibits. In Fort Bragg, proposals were put forth the same year to rename the coastal California town named after Braxton Bragg who enslaved more than 100 people. The town was named in 1857, before the Civil War. Before trading sides and becoming a Confederate general, Bragg had been a commanding officer in the U.S. military who fought in the Mexican-American War. Bragg was a controversial figure in the Civil War with a lasting reputation for his short fuse and inept leadership.
[Pictured: A welcome sign upon entering Fort Bragg, California.]
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Sharon Baker, EdD, The University of Tulsa // Wikimedia Commons
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 16
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Stonewall (4 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 7
The Cherokee Nation removed two Confederate monuments from Capitol Square in 2020 that the Daughters of the Confederacy had installed almost 100 years prior.
Elsewhere in Oklahoma, other monuments have come under fire for potential removal as other Confederate monuments around the country come down.
[Pictured: The Civil War Monument on Capitol Square in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, photographed in 2016.]
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Ty Wright // Getty Images
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 20
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Charleston (5 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 2
West Virginia is the only state that was created in the Civil War when it seceded from Virginia to join the Union. Many of the state's Confederate memorials were donated by the Daughters of the Confederacy during the civil rights movement and Jim Crow era.
[Pictured: A passerby stops to take a picture of the statue of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson at the West Virginia State Capitol Complex on Aug.16, 2017, in Charleston, West Virginia.]
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Larry J. Summary // Wikimedia Commons
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 25
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Breckenridge (3 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 8
The Cape Girardeau Historic Preservation Commission in June 2020 voted unanimously to remove a monument of the Confederate flag with the initials “C.S.A.” (Confederate States of America) above it. The monument had been installed in 1931 and moved to its position in Cape Girardeau in 1995.
[Pictured: A Confederate war memorial in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, photographed in 2008.]
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Bill Pugliano // Getty Images
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 49
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Perryville (10 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 6
During the removal of a marble statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis from the Kentucky state capitol in June of 2020, officials discovered a newspaper dated Oct. 20, 1936. The clipping underscores the fact that rather than being part of actual Civil War history, most Confederate monuments were installed more than a half-century after its end.
Two other Confederate monuments in Kentucky were relocated in 2019: one of Confederate Gen. John Cabell Breckinridge, who also served as secretary of war, and another of Gen. John Hunt Morgan.
[Pictured: A monument to John Hunt Morgan, a Confederate general during the Civil War, stands near the old Historic Lexington Courthouse Aug. 14, 2017, in Lexington, Kentucky.]
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Ted Swedenburg // Flickr
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 65
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Little Rock (14 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 9
The city of Little Rock removed a Confederate monument in June 2020 called “Memorial to Company A, Capital Guard” that stood since 1911. The state has dozens of Civil War properties that are registered with the National Register of Historic Places.
[Pictured: A monument to the Confederacy in the town square in Bentonville, Arkansas.]
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Joe Raedle // Getty Images
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 77
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Jacksonville (9 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 33
Gadsden County’s commission in June of 2020 voted unanimously to remove a 136-year-old Confederate monument. A Confederate monument in Jacksonville was removed soon after. Elsewhere, groups voted to keep Confederate memorials: The commission in Walton County—which is 90% white—agreed to keep a Confederate flag that has hung outside the courthouse since the civil rights era.
[Pictured: A Confederate monument in Lee Park in Pensacola, Florida, photographed in 2017.]
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J. Stephen Conn // Flickr
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 113
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Franklin (13 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 11
Protestors in May of 2020 pulled down a statue of Edward Carmack—a pro-lynching newspaper editor and politician—at Tennessee's state capitol that had been up for nine decades. That statue, along with the dozens of Confederate symbols and other monuments throughout the state, was controversial for years but received newly focused attention since the start of the George Floyd protests.
[Pictured: The Confederate Monument in the Franklin, Tennessee, town center stands across from the Williamson County Courthouse.]
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Mario Tama // Getty Images
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 130
- City with the most Confederate symbols: New Orleans (36 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 12
The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board voted unanimously in June of 2020 to change the name of Lee High School. The same year, the Iberville Parish Council voted unanimously to take down a Confederate statue in front of the courthouse that stood for more than 100 years with the inscription “The principles for which they fought live eternally.”
In March of 2022, New Orleans swapped Robert E. Lee Boulevard for a new name: Allen Toussaint Boulevard.
[Pictured: In New Orleans, a woman bikes past the pedestal which held Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's statue, which was removed in 2017.]
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jmanaugh3 // Shutterstock
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 152
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Moss Point (17 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 15
In Mississippi, officials in June 2022 agreed to relocate a Confederate statue that had been prominently located on the University of Mississippi campus, to a campus cemetery. The monument was the site of a 1962 riot that touched off when the first Black student tried to enroll; that riot killed two people. Groups voted for the statue’s removal in 2019.
[Pictured: A Confederate statue on the Mississippi University Campus in Oxford, Mississippi.]
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JNix // Shutterstock
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 156
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Montgomery (27 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 15
In Birmingham and Mobile, Confederate monuments were removed amid Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
Alabama’s Confederate Memorial Park Chilton County houses the state’s sole Confederate Soldiers’ Home, which was in operation from 1902 to 1939. The park also has a Confederate artifacts museum, burial grounds for 300 Confederate soldiers, and an on-site library that is managed by the Sons of Confederate Veterans organization. The park has been the subject of calls for defunding.
[Pictured: A large confederate monument on located Capitol Hill in Montgomery, Alabama.]
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Bryan Regan // Shutterstock
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 176
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Wilmington (32 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 31
The state capitol’s 75-foot Confederate monument, featuring a Confederate infantryman standing atop a giant granite pillar, was taken down in June 2020. It had been erected in 1895. The action came on the heels of protesters pulling down two statues of Confederate soldiers near the monument and dragging them through downtown Raleigh. It took three days for workers to remove the 8,500-pound column of granite beneath the statue.
In the same month, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill lifted a moratorium established in 2015 that forbade changing the names of campus buildings and locations.
[Pictured: A crew removes a Confederate monument from the Capitol grounds in Raleigh, North Carolina, on June 20, 2020.]
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Epics // Getty Images
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 224
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Columbia (39 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 4
Following the 2015 church murder of eight Black parishioners and a pastor, South Carolina’s Confederate flag on the state capitol lawn was removed. A full one-third of the monuments on statehouse grounds today relate to the Confederacy or segregation.
A 2000 bill called the Heritage Act makes it so a two-thirds vote by South Carolina’s General Assembly is required to make any changes to building names or monuments.
[Pictured: A statue of Confederate cavalry leader Wade Hampton III stands on the grounds of the South Carolina State House in Columbia.]
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LAURA BUCKMAN/Laura Buckman/AFP/AFP via Getty Images
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 242
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Austin (10 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 65
Petitions throughout Texas in 2020 called for the removal or relocation of dozens of Confederate monuments, including in Marshall, Texarkana, and Austin. Several of the calls were for the Confederate monuments—many of which are on government property—to be moved to museums or historic cemeteries rather than on the front steps of official buildings or in public view.
[Pictured: Workers remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from Robert E. Lee Park in Dallas, Texas, on Sept. 14, 2017.]
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CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 285
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Atlanta (22 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 26
Georgia law prohibits moving monuments in most cases. One exception is the relocation of a monument in order to carry out planned construction. Seizing on this loophole, government officials in Athens-Clarke County in 2020 put forward a proposal for a crosswalk expansion in downtown Athens near the University of Georgia where a contentious monument honoring dead Confederate soldiers has stood since 1872. The location was a lightning rod for protestors, some of whom graffitied the monument, and clashes with police.
[Pictured: Crew members work to remove a 30-foot Confederate monument, which was brought down on June 19, 2020, in Decatur, Georgia.]
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Tasos Katopodis // Getty Images
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 290
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Lexington (31 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 107
Virginia, home to the most Confederate symbols in the United States, was a central focus of protests that erupted worldwide following the death of George Floyd. Protestors took it upon themselves to take down monuments to Confederacy President Jefferson Davis and Christopher Columbus.
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam in June of 2020 ordered the removal of a 60-foot monument of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that stood downtown for 130 years. The move came amid extensive protests and widespread defacing of the sculpture. Hundreds of photographs taken following extensive graffiti work done on that and other Confederate monuments throughout Richmond depicted families, dancers, couples, artists, and activists posing in front of the transformed symbols.
[Pictured: People gather at the Robert E. Lee Monument on June 18, 2020, in Richmond, Virginia.]
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Epics // Getty Images
Seventy-three Confederate monuments were removed or renamed in 2021, leaving 723 such monuments standing in the United States—and even that stark number pales against the greater number of Confederate memorials that continue to dot the national landscape. The Southern Poverty Law Center's Whose Heritage? data project, which released its most recent report in February 2022, found more than 2,000 Confederate memorials still in place. This includes the aforementioned monuments, as well as parks, schools, streets, highways, and any other structure or public space that honors a Confederate figure or the whole coalition of seceded states.
Stacker analyzed the SPLC's research and ranked states according to which have the most Confederate memorials. Data was last updated Jan. 21, 2022.
Those in favor of keeping Confederate memorials in place cite the need to preserve American history when, in fact, the vast majority of these monuments were erected long after the Civil War's conclusion in 1865. The first half-dozen Confederate monuments were erected on the heels of the Civil War, but over the next four decades, six or fewer monuments went up each year. It wasn't until the turn of the century that installations surged. In 1911 alone, 50 Confederate monuments were erected around the country, coinciding with peak Jim Crow laws designed to disadvantage Blacks and perpetuate segregation.
Other surges appeared throughout the first half of the 20th century, with pronounced increases in Confederate monuments going up throughout the civil rights movement and smaller increases at the turn of the 21st century and immediately following the election of President Barack Obama in 2008.
Dozens of Confederate memorials around the U.S. were taken down on the heels of a 2015 church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, that killed nine Black parishioners including the church's pastor. Two years later, in defiance of plans to take down a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia, hundreds of self-described neo-Nazis and white supremacists gathered for a "Unite the Right" rally. Clashes at that rally with counter-protesters hit an apex when Alex Fields Jr. drove his car into a crowd of counter-protestors, injuring 19 people and killing one. At the end of the August event, three were dead, dozens injured, and the ongoing debate over whether Confederate monuments ought to be protected or removed remained unresolved.
The debate gained renewed fervor in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd on May 25. Protests in cities and small towns around the country included acts of civil disobedience such as covering Confederate monuments in graffiti or toppling Confederate statues and other monuments perceived as symbols of oppression and slavery. Across the United States, pressure mounted to take such monuments away and out of the public eye, with dozens of municipalities taking action to do so. In total, 157 Confederate memorials were removed throughout the country in 2020. The trend of eliminating existing testimonials to the Confederacy has continued to persist—on Dec. 12, 2022, the city of Richmond, Virginia, once the beating heart of the Confederate States, finally removed its very last Confederate monument.
Various groups stand by claims that these memorials serve as important historical markers; others argue the memorials glorify white supremacists and ignore those who were hurt, enslaved, and killed by the scourge of racism in this country. Some historians have suggested that how Germany has handled its postwar past might serve as a model for reckoning with the lingering evidence of slavery. Concentration camps serve as museums that detail the horrors that occurred therein so people never forget what happened, with nary a Hitler or SS statue to be found. Instead, statues and monuments memorialize victims who were lost as well as those who survived.
Keep reading to find out where the most Confederate monuments still stand, and to learn about recent debates over what to do with them.
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Jasperdo // Flickr
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 1
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Picacho Pass (1 symbol)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 4
After calls for Gov. Doug Ducey to take down Confederate monuments in the state capitol, and at least one instance of vandalism, two Confederate monuments in Arizona were removed in 2020 and returned to the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
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duckeesue // Shutterstock
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 1
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Georgetown (1 symbol)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 0
A petition launched in June 2020 called for the removal of the Confederate monument and flag standing in Delaware outside the Nutter Marvel Carriage Museum in Georgetown—the only such memorial in the state. The monument and flag have been on the site since 2007.
The Georgetown Historical Society, which owns the property the monument is sitting on, does not actually own or maintain the installation—although funding for that group was pulled in 2019 amid objections from Delaware Sen. Trey Paradee over the monument and flag. Nonetheless, the local community continues to fund the museum.
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Jon Roanhaus // Wikimedia Commons
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 1
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Wyacondah (1 symbol)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 1
The Bentonsport monument wasn't put up until 2007 to honor a Confederate general who was born there. The memorial has been controversial since its installation, with renewed pushes for its removal following the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.
In Bloomfield, three rocks mark the furthest point reached by Confederate soldiers coming out of the South. That marker was installed in 2005.
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Public Domain // Wikimedia Commons
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 1
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Corydon (1 symbol)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 2
Indiana's one Confederate marker stands in memory of the 11 men who were killed and 40 who were injured while fighting in "Morgan's Raid," Gen. John Hunt Morgan's Confederate Cavalry Division that overwhelmed Union troops during the Battle of Corydon on July 9, 1863. It was the only battle fought in the state and was won by the Confederacy.
Gen. Morgan was known for his violent and chaotic raids, which included taking prisoners, stealing supplies, extorting money, burning buildings, and breaking telegraph and railroad lines in Union territories. Morgan's Raid was the Civil War's longest cavalry raid, carving a path of destruction across more than 1,000 miles.
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Jerry Edmundson // Flickr
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 2
- City with the most Confederate symbols: McConnellsburg (2 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 4
Two road markers installed in 1929 and 1930 in McConnellsburg pay homage to Confederate soldiers.
The marker on U.S. 522 commemorates Confederate soldiers who escaped to the town via the nearby mountain following a fire in nearby Chambersburg in 1864 that was authorized by Brigadier Gen. John McCausland. The rebel officers hid in a McConnellsburg farmhouse, and the soldiers stayed nearby while keeping watch for Union troops. On PA-16, a marker denotes where two Confederate soldiers were buried after being killed in 1863 in what was supposedly the first Civil War battle in Pennsylvania.
Both markers came under fresh scrutiny in 2017 following the Unite the Right Rally and its counterprotests in Charlottesville.
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Allyn // Wikimedia Commons
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 2
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Bellingham, East Wenatchee (1 symbol each)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 2
East Wenatchee is home to Lee Elementary School, named in 1955 for Gen. Robert E. Lee at the same time other Confederate monuments and memorials were going up around the country in defiance of the civil rights movement. There was much debate in 2015 over whether to change the name, but the community opted to keep it as-is.
In Bellingham, Pickett Road was named for George Pickett, who resigned from the U.S. military when the Civil War broke out and became a colonel for the Confederacy. And just outside Ridgefield in Clark County, Jefferson Davis Park pays homage to the president of the Confederate States of America. The monuments there once marked the northern and southern points of State Route 99. The park is owned by a group called Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Following 2017's Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and related counter-protests, the Sons of Confederate Veterans said they had received multiple death threats along with calls to remove the monuments.
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Marty Nelson // Shutterstock
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 3
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Boise National Forest, Boise, Leesburg (1 symbol each)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 1
The Cathedral of the Rockies in Boise announced in June 2020 that it would remove a stained glass window depicting Gen. Robert E. Lee that was installed in 1960. Outside the city, Robert E. Lee Creek and Robert E. Lee Campground have received renewed criticisms and calls for renaming.
Idaho is also home to the city of Leesburg, dedicated in 1855 and named for the Confederate general.
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Sean Pavone // Shutterstock
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 4
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Pendleton (4 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 0
Oregon's state board of education voted in September 2020 to ban hate symbols—including the Confederate flag—from the more than 1,200 public schools in the state. In Pendleton, stamps remain on old street markers named for Confederate figures.
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Sam Wagner // Shutterstock
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 5
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Breckenridge (5 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 0
A scarred Virginia battle flag, captured by a Minnesota private in 1863 during the Battle of Gettysburg, is housed at the Minnesota Historical Society. Virginia officials have asked for and demanded the flag's return many times over the years.
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Brandy McKnight // Shutterstock
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 5
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Las Cruces (3 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 3
Four of the five Confederate symbols extant in the Land of Enchantment are devoted to John Robert Baylor, a lieutenant colonel of the Confederate Army who is credited with victories over Union forces in the early years of the Civil War. In the Las Cruces area, a canyon road, a recreational trail, and a peak within the Organ Mountains bear Baylor's name. Baylor held a particular distaste for Native Americans, which he espoused as the editor of the newspaper "The White Man." Currently, local Native leaders and civil groups are calling for the removal of his name from the Organ Mountains Wilderness Area.
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Montanabw // Wikimedia Commons
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 6
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Diamond City, Dillon (2 symbols each)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 1
In April 2020, almost three years after its removal, Montana replaced its Confederate Memorial Fountain with The Equity Fountain. The monument to the Confederacy stood for more than a century but had come under fire along with hundreds of others following the violence that erupted in Charlottesville in 2017.
Elsewhere in the state, other memorials remain, including the Jeff Davis Creek in the city of Dillon.
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Bruce Faling // Flickr
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 6
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Milford (3 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 1
In 2020, Ohio lawmakers refused to ban Confederate flags and other symbols at county fairs, despite Gov. Mike DeWine stating he was not opposed to removing Confederate statues and memorials throughout the state.
The Robert E. Lee Dixie Highway Monument was removed in 2017 after standing for almost a century; several roads named for Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson remain in the state's southwest corner.
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TASOS KATOPODIS/AFP via Getty Images
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 7
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Annapolis (3 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 12
Several Confederate monuments in Maryland aren't exactly historical; some were dedicated as recently as the 1990s and early 2000s. In June 2020, calls were renewed to remove Confederate memorials throughout Maryland, including a Civil War plaque that was installed in the State House in 1964.
In 2015, former Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake created a commission to review all Confederate monuments in the city and make recommendations including preservation in place, the addition of new signage, relocation, or removal.
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Mark Wilson // Getty Images
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 8
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Washington (7 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 4
A statue of Confederate Brigadier Gen. Albert Pike was pulled down by protestors on June 20 and set on fire. It was the only outdoor Confederate monument in the nation's capital. Several statues still stand, however, including one of Robert E. Lee in the Capitol Building.
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Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 9
- City with the most Confederate symbols: West Point (9 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 4
A number of Confederate memorials were removed from New York City in the wake of the 2017 Unite the Right rally. These included a plaque installed in 1912 denoting the location where Gen. Robert E. Lee planted a tree in Brooklyn, as well as sculptures of Lee (dedicated in 1923) and fellow Confederate Gen. Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson (dedicated in 1957) that stood in Bronx Community College's Hall of Fame for Great Americans. In 2018, a statue in Central Park of J. Marion Sims—a 19th-century doctor and gynecologist who conducted experimental surgeries on enslaved women between 1845 and 1849—was also taken down.
Amid the swell of protests following the death of George Floyd, several other monuments throughout the city came under renewed scrutiny including a statue of President Theodore Roosevelt that stood in front of the American Museum of Natural History. That monument, depicting the former president flanked by a Native American man and an African man, was finally removed in January 2022.
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Albert Campbell // Shutterstock
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 10
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Fort Bragg (4 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 12
Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks in California announced in late June 2020 that all references to Gen. Robert E. Lee would be removed from printed and online materials and exhibits. In Fort Bragg, proposals were put forth that same year to rename the coastal California town named after Braxton Bragg, who enslaved more than 100 people. The town was named in 1857, before the Civil War. Before trading sides and becoming a Confederate general, Bragg had been a commanding officer in the U.S. military who fought in the Mexican-American War. Bragg was a controversial figure in the Civil War with a lasting reputation for his short fuse and inept leadership.
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Sharon Baker, EdD, The University of Tulsa // Wikimedia Commons
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 16
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Stonewall (4 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 7
The Cherokee Nation removed two Confederate monuments from Capitol Square in 2020 that the Daughters of the Confederacy had installed almost 100 years prior. Elsewhere in Oklahoma, other monuments have been identified for potential removal as other Confederate monuments around the country come down. But in a somewhat stunning twist of circumstance, plans have been devised for the town of Waukomis to become a home to removed statues from elsewhere in the U.S., including statues of Christopher Columbus and Confederate leaders. The plans for "Patriot Park" remain in stasis, pending the publication of a book commissioned by the Red River Institute of History.
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Ty Wright // Getty Images
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 20
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Charleston (5 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 2
West Virginia is the only state that was created by the Civil War when it seceded from Virginia to join the Union. Many of the state's Confederate memorials were donated by the Daughters of the Confederacy during the civil rights movement and Jim Crow era. Among the markers still on public display are a bust and statue of Gen. Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson in the state capitol building in Charleston. A middle school in that same city, with a student population nearly 50% Black, also bears Jackson's name.
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Larry J. Summary // Wikimedia Commons
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 25
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Breckenridge (3 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 8
In June 2020, the Cape Girardeau Historic Preservation Commission voted unanimously to remove a monument of the Confederate flag with the initials "C.S.A." (Confederate States of America) above it. The monument had been installed in 1931 and moved to its position in Cape Girardeau in 1995. Debates in the state continue as to the expediency with which remaining markers are (or are not) being removed. Students at the University of Missouri at Columbia have added Thomas Jefferson to the list of those visages they would like to see taken down.
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Bill Pugliano // Getty Images
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Ted Swedenburg // Flickr
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 65
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Little Rock (14 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 9
The city of Little Rock removed a Confederate monument in June 2020 called "Memorial to Company A, Capital Guard" that had stood since 1911. The state has dozens of Civil War properties that are registered with the National Register of Historic Places. Progress in removing Confederate markers remains challenging—a Fort Smith panel ruled in September 2022 that any restoration of the Flags Over Fort Smith display must include the Confederate flag.
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Joe Raedle // Getty Images
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 77
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Jacksonville (8 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 33
In June 2020, a Gadsden County commission voted unanimously to remove a 136-year-old Confederate monument. Another Confederate monument in Jacksonville was removed soon after. Elsewhere in the state, however, groups voted to keep Confederate memorials: A commission in Walton County—which is 90% white—agreed to keep a Confederate flag that has hung outside the courthouse since the civil rights era.
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J. Stephen Conn // Flickr
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 112
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Franklin (12 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 12
In May 2020, protestors pulled down a statue of Edward Carmack—a pro-lynching newspaper editor and politician—at Tennessee's state capitol that had been up for nine decades. That statue, along with the dozens of Confederate symbols and other monuments throughout the state, was controversial for years but received newly focused attention in the wake of the George Floyd protests. The city of Knoxville, however, continues to welcome the Sons of Confederate Veterans to its annual Christmas parade, where the Confederate flag is allowed to be displayed.
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Mario Tama // Getty Images
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 127
- City with the most Confederate symbols: New Orleans (36 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 16
The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board voted unanimously in June 2020 to change the name of Lee High School. That same year, the Iberville Parish Council voted unanimously to take down a Confederate statue that stood for more than 100 years; the statue had featured the inscription" "The principles for which they fought live eternally."
In March 2022, New Orleans swapped Robert E. Lee Boulevard for a new name: Allen Toussaint Boulevard.
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jmanaugh3 // Shutterstock
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 153
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Moss Point (17 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 15
In June 2022, University of Mississippi officials agreed to relocate a Confederate statue that had been prominently located on the school's campus to a campus cemetery. The monument was the site of a 1962 riot, which touched off when the first Black student in the university's history tried to enroll, that resulted in the deaths of two people.
A statue of former Gov. Theodore Bilbo was removed from the state capitol building in February 2022. Bilbo was a prominent white supremacist and advocate for segregation. Even more recently, in October, a statue of Emmett Till, whose lynching by a white mob in 1955 for supposedly flirting with a white woman sparked the civil rights movement, was unveiled in Greenwood.
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Bryan Regan // Shutterstock
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 173
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Wilmington (32 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 35
The state capitol's 75-foot Confederate monument, featuring a Confederate infantryman standing atop a giant granite pillar, was taken down in June 2020. It had been erected in 1895. The action came on the heels of protesters pulling down two statues of Confederate soldiers near the monument and dragging them through downtown Raleigh. It took three days for workers to remove the 8,500-pound column of granite beneath the statue.
In the same month, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill lifted a moratorium established in 2015 that forbade changing the names of campus buildings and locations.
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JNix // Shutterstock
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 175
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Montgomery (45 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 15
In Birmingham and Mobile, Confederate monuments were removed amid Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. Alabama's Confederate Memorial Park in Chilton County houses the state's sole Confederate Soldiers' Home, which was in operation from 1902 to 1939. The park also has a Confederate artifacts museum, burial grounds for 300 Confederate soldiers, and an on-site library that is managed by the Sons of Confederate Veterans organization. The park has been the subject of calls for defunding.
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Epics // Getty Images
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 224
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Columbia (39 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 4
Following the 2015 murder of eight Black parishioners and a pastor at a church in Charleston, South Carolina's Confederate flag on the state capitol lawn was removed. But any momentum to take down further Confederate markers waned quickly. A 2000 bill called the Heritage Act requires a two-thirds vote by South Carolina's General Assembly to make any changes to building names or monuments. A full one-third of the monuments on statehouse grounds today relate to the Confederacy or segregation.
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LAURA BUCKMAN/Laura Buckman/AFP/AFP via Getty Images
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 245
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Austin (12 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 70
Petitions throughout Texas in 2020 called for the removal or relocation of dozens of Confederate monuments, including those in Marshall, Texarkana, and Austin. The city of Dallas has faced several legal challenges since 2017 over the removal of Confederate markers. In 2019, the city took down an 83-year-old statue of Robert E. Lee only after winning three lawsuits to stop the removal. Following a longstanding legal skirmish, the city removed and archived a 65-foot Confederate Monument from Pioneer Cemetery Park in 2020.
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Tasos Katopodis // Getty Images
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 279
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Alexandria, Lexington (28 symbols each)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 116
Virginia was a central focus of protests that erupted worldwide following the death of George Floyd. Protestors took down monuments to Confederacy President Jefferson Davis and Christopher Columbus.
In June 2020, then-Gov. Ralph Northam ordered the removal of a 60-foot monument of Gen. Robert E. Lee that had stood in downtown Richmond for 130 years. The move came amid extensive protests and widespread defacing of the sculpture. Hundreds of photographs taken following extensive graffiti work done on the Lee statue and other Confederate monuments throughout Richmond depicted families, dancers, couples, artists, and activists posing in front of the transformed symbols. On Dec. 12, 2022, the city of Richmond, once the beating heart of the Confederacy, finally removed its very last Confederate monument.
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CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images
- Total number of Confederate symbols: 281
- City with the most Confederate symbols: Atlanta (22 symbols)
- Number of symbols removed since 1880: 29
Georgia law prohibits the defacement or removal of monuments in nearly all circumstances. One exception, however, concerns the relocation of a monument in order to carry out planned construction. Seizing on this loophole, government officials in Athens-Clarke County in 2020 proposed a crosswalk expansion in downtown Athens near the University of Georgia where a contentious monument honoring dead Confederate soldiers has stood since 1872. The location was a lightning rod for protestors, some of whom graffitied the monument and clashed with police. As recently as May 2022, the Georgia Supreme Court heard arguments regarding the protection of Confederate monuments.
