Stop Silencing Communities, Repeal the Confederate Monument Law
So far, Gov. Kay Ivey hasn’t been willing to let Alabama communities take similar action. In fact, she has silenced the voices of Alabamians who believe their community’s public spaces should no longer pay tribute to the Confederacy.
Among Ivey’s first acts as governor was signing into law the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act, which prohibits the removal of monuments that are 40 or more years old. Its goal is clear: preserving Confederate monuments in public spaces - even if the community objects.
That was apparent when the state attorney general used the law to sue Birmingham after it erected a plywood barrier around a Confederate monument in Linn Park. The barrier went up as city officials considered what they could do with a towering monument that no longer represents the values of a city that was at the epicenter of the civil rights movement. The barrier, according to the state, supposedly alters the monument, violating the law.
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