2 Confederate Statues Were Removed in Georgia Within 3 Days

Two Confederate statues were removed from public locations in the state of Georgia this week.

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As calls for social justice rang out throughout the country following the death of George Floyd at the hands of former Minneapolis Police officers, many monuments were vandalized, spray painted or even torn down by the public.

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One such vandalism was the catalyst for the removal of the Confederate monument that stood outside the Gwinnett County Courthouse in Lawrenceville.

The stone monument, inscribed with “1861-1865 Lest We Forget” and installed in 1993, was removed and put into storage Thursday, according to CNN affiliate WXIA.

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The Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners voted in January to have the monument moved into storage until court proceedings were finished determining its fate, a press release from the board said last month.

According to the release, the 28-year-old monument was vandalized during protests in June 2020, prompting a lawsuit filed by Gwinnett County Solicitor-General Brian Whiteside that sought to have the monument declared a public nuisance and have it removed.

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Commissioner Kirkland Carden said in the release that it was “time to remove this monument of hate that has been a stain on Gwinnett County since it was erected in 1993,” adding that “removing this monument is a step in the right direction.”

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A statue of Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston was relocated from downtown Dalton to the historic Huff House Saturday by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, who own the statue, city of Dalton spokesman Bruce Frazier told CNN.

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The historic Huff House was the headquarters of General Johnston “during the Confederate Army of Tennessee’s winter encampment in Dalton for about six months from December 1863 to May 1864,” Robert D. Jenkins, Sr., attorney for the United Daughters of the Confederacy, said in a statement to CNN.

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“No one involved in this process has intimated or attempted to tear down or destroy the statue or the history of it,” he said, adding that the United Daughters of the Confederacy “simply wanted it moved from a public property and were willing to pay for its relocation.”

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