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Frazier said for almost two years Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry and the Jacksonville City Council have ignored the groups’ calls for taking down the monuments. Frazier has said if the city removes the monuments there will be no boycott.

Florida Politics

Jacksonville Debates Removing Confederate Monuments as Activists Threaten Boycott

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Frazier said for almost two years Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry and the Jacksonville City Council have ignored the groups’ calls for taking down the monuments. Frazier has said if the city removes the monuments there will be no boycott.

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Groups in Jacksonville are telling the city to remove local Confederate monuments or face a city-wide boycott

The groups TakeEmDownJax, TakeEmDownEverywhere and the Northside Coalition insist if Jacksonville doesn’t remove Confederate monuments “there will be an economic boycott of the city” insists Ben Frazier, the leader of the Northside Coalition.

Frazier said for almost two years Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry and the Jacksonville City Council have ignored the groups’ calls for taking down the monuments. Frazier has said if the city removes the monuments there will be no boycott.

WBOB radio morning co-host and news director Roger Henderson questioned the call for a boycott.

Henderson told Florida Daily that the same groups calling for the removal of Confederate monuments are also demanding the city of Jacksonville immediately take down the names of Confederate leaders off public buildings and street signs.

“I don’t get it,” Henderson said. “Black leaders are calling for a boycott of a city that heavily employs those in the black community. Don’t these leaders realize the city boycott will hurt those in the black community?”

Henderson also noted callers listening to the radio show have proposed instead of taking down Confederate monuments, why not build new ones honoring local African-Americans.

That doesn’t seem to play well with the local activist groups. At a recent rally, around 140 people showed their support of taking down the Confederate monuments with Frazier insisting “Jacksonville is a racist city which refuses to deal with these Confederate monuments” which will lead to a boycott.

Still, there have been some efforts in recent years. The name of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate cavalry general who helped form the KKK and had no connection to Northeast Florida, was removed from a Jacksonville high school after several years of debate. There are other schools in the area named after Confederate leaders including Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Edmund Kirby Smith, Joseph Finnegan, Jeb Stuart and others. More recently, the state Senate removed the Confederate battle flag off of its seal. Last year, Florida removed the statue of Kirby Smith, a Confederate general who was born in St. Augustine but had little ties to the state otherwise, from Statutory Hall in the U.S. Capitol.

Florida state Rep. Mike Hill, R-Pensacola, filed a bill that would make it illegal to remove a public monument for any reason other than repairs or relocation to an equally prominent place.Hill’s bill would prohibit Florida communities from tearing down Confederate monuments.

Hill, who is African American, disagrees with groups that want to take down Confederate monuments.

“Keeping these statues up is about preserving history and providing education,” Hill said.

With the legislative session already halfway over, Hill’s bill has failed to gain any traction and has not even been before committee yet.

 

Contact Ed at Ed.Dean@FloridaDaily.com.

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6 Comments

6 Comments

  1. Chris Elands

    April 3, 2019, 11:58 am at 11:58 am

    140 at the rally. More like 60, and for an International conference, was pretty lame honestly. I was there.

  2. Tony Afara

    April 4, 2019, 8:32 am at 8:32 am

    Do not remove any historical monuments, this has nothing to do with racism but a lot to do with erasing american history. The people that are most racist, that practice slavery the most are the ones pushing for this. We need to take a step back from all of this and look at the big picture, at what really is going on in the U.S and who’s behind it. Stop pandering to the real racists and bigots who hate the United States of America, grow a pair and know when to say No. The U.S has nothing to be ashamed of or feel guilty about.

  3. Florida Snowbird

    April 4, 2019, 9:47 am at 9:47 am

    Well Jax and FL, you have a choice here Thanks To The Anti-USA erase all American History puppets of SorAz&Spawn, SteyerEtAl and the Usual Suspects in our government..

    You can Let Them dismantle our history but no funding from Americans or taxes, requiring them to clean up the site AND to move the monument to a PUBIC Storage Facility and pay the storage ad infinitum with a Trust setup to pay. They are demanding REMOVAL but have not shown followup and CANNOT destroy the monument but only IF YOU permit, remove it… as in re-move not destroy.

    OR you can dismantle those idiot puppets and keep your Florida Tourists and anticipated new residents.

    One way or the other, you are in a tough spot which should not be a tough spot… it is only if you want to give a knee to those idiots.

    It’s “us” or “them” and it’s YOUR choice.

  4. Karl Burkhalter

    April 4, 2019, 9:53 am at 9:53 am

    With the South having seceded, the Lincoln led Republicans (a Northern sectional party) controlled both houses of the 37th Congress. One of their select committees was the “Committee on Emancipation and Colonization.” The following resolution from that committee explains exactly what motivated Northern “anti-slavery.” Anti-slavery meant nothing more than “anti-black;” and to rid the country of an “inferior race” to prevent amalgamation. It was this kind of immoral racism that led to Southern secession in the first place. Is it any wonder that the Mississippi Declaration of Secession laments that the North “seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.” If this is why the South was “pro-slavery,” in order to protect their black neighbors from Northern racism, what else are we not being told about the cause of secession and war?

    37th Congess.
    No. 148. REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON EMANCIPATION AND COLONIZATION,In the House of Resentatives, July 16, 1862:

    “It is useless, now, to enter upon any philosophical inquiry whether nature has or has not made the negro inferior to the Caucasian. The belief is indelibly fixed upon the public mind that such inequality does exist. There are irreconcilable differences between the two races which separate them,
    as with a wall of fire. The home for the African must not be within the limits of the present territory of the Union. The Anglo- American looks upon every acre of our present domain as intended for him, and not for the negro. A home, therefore, must be sought for the African beyond our own limits and in those warmer regions to which his constitution is better adapted than to our own climate,and which doubtless the Almighty intended the colored races should inhabit and cultivate.

    Much of the objection to emancipation arises from the opposition of a large portion of our people to the intermixture of the races, and from the association of white and black labor. The committee would do nothing to favor such a policy; apart from the antipathy which nature has ordained, the presence of a race among us who cannot, and ought not to be admitted to our social and political privileges, will be a perpetual source of injury and inquietude to both. This is a question of color, and is unaffected by the relation of master and slave.

    The introduction of the negro, whether bond or free, into the same field of labor with the white man, is the opprobrium of the latter… We wish to disabuse our laboring countrymen, and the whole Caucasian race who may seek a home here, of this error… The committee conclude that the highest interests of the white race, whether Anglo-Saxon, Celt, or Scandinavian, require that the whole country should be held and occupied by those races.”

    Faced with an inhumane Northern racism, that barred slaves from migrating North or to the territories and wanted them colonized out of the country or kicked to the curb landless and penniless to die out, it is no wonder General Lee exclaimed:

    “The best men in the South have long desired to do away with the institution of slavery, and are quite willing to see it abolished. UNLESS SOME HUMANE COURSE, BASED ON WISDOM AND CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES IS ADOPTED, you do them great injustice in setting them free.”(emphasis mine)

  5. Pingback: Be Careful With the Monuments - Students 4 Social Change

  6. Mary Catherine Gordon

    April 18, 2021, 10:38 pm at 10:38 pm

    Before and throughout the entire Civil War slaves, who were owned by Ulysses S. Grant’s wife Julia Dent, worked at Ulysses S. Grant’s White Haven home in Missouri, a Union slave state. I am against slavery. If the Civil War was started over the issue of slavery, why did President Lincoln choose Ulysses S. Grant to be his top general? Captain David Camden De Leon, a Jewish physician, was the first surgeon general of the Confederate States of America. I therefore find it strange that the CSA flag has become associated with that red flag with the black swastika in the middle. In 1862 General Grant issued Order No. 11 which ordered the expulsion of Jews living in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri. As far as I know, General Robert E. Lee never ordered the expulsion of Jews living within the Confederacy and General Robert E. Lee’s slaves were freed in 1862. I do not know why some people associate statues of General Lee and the Confederate flag with antisemitism. Many Confederate soldiers were Jewish. I never hear about people protesting the presence of statues of General Grant because of his antisemitic Grant Order No. 11. A number of times in the past I have voted for African-American candidates at various Duval County polling/voting sites. If I am/was a racist, why would I find myself voting for African-Americans? I am not a racist.

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Ed Dean: Publisher

 

Ed Dean is a leading radio and news media personality including hosting the #1 statewide radio talk show in Florida. Contact Ed.Dean@FloridaDaily.com

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