Prospectus of Goals and Resolutions to Address

City of Jacksonville Civil War Related Monuments and Markers On City Property

Mission Goals:

In August of 2020, an unofficial committee of historians, arts professionals, and City planners
was convened to suggest possible resolutions to forestall any acts of vandalism and destruction in
Jacksonville due to Summer 2020 national protests over monuments to Confederate icons.

The group was assembled to identify potential issues that might arise and provide deliberated
suggestions that the City could then present to stakeholders.

The three monuments discussed were:

1. Confederate Monument

Location: James Weldon Johnson Park – Downtown (formerly Hemming

Park, formerly St. James Park)

Date of Placement: 1898

Placed By: Donation of Charles Hemming to honor

Florida Confederate Soldiers. Accepted on behalf of the State of
Florida by Governor William Bloxham.

2. Monument to the Women of the Southland (Monument to the Women of the

Confederacy)

Location: Springfield Park (formerly Confederate Park, formerly Dignan

Park)

Date of Placement: 1915

Placed By: Florida Division – United Confederate Veterans

3. Grandstand – Confederate Memorial Services

Location: Old City Cemetery

Date of Placement: 1926

Placed By: Martha Reid Chapter No. 19, United

Daughters of the Confederacy

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 United Confederate Veterans (R.E. Lee Camp No. 58)

Sons of the Confederate Veterans (Stonewall Jackson Camp No.

83)

Statement of Working Group’s Position:

The city of Jacksonville has a rich historic infrastructure of parks and public spaces that link
downtown from west to east, essentially from Prime Osborn and LaVilla to TIAA Field. “Lift
Ev’ry Voice and Sing” Park is eight blocks west of James Weldon Johnson Park, which is six
blocks south of Springfield Park, which is two blocks west of the Old City Cemetery. Together
these parks form an archaeological and historical record of how Jacksonville has changed
culturally and demographically over the last century. They are sites that anchor in space our
collective memory of white and black Jacksonville, of the historic African American
neighborhood of LaVilla, of the Johnson family, of the city of Jacksonville before and after the
Great Fire, of the city’s worst legacies of racism and intolerance (e.g. 1960’s Ax Handle
Saturday, the 1914 Confederate Veteran’s Reunion), of the city’s best legacies of civic bravery,
art, and cultural achievement (e.g. the civil rights advocates who were the targets of Ax Handle
Saturday, Eartha White and the Clara White Mission, the Ritz, etc.). These spaces form a natural
corridor linking most of downtown.

The City of Jacksonville’s earlier Task Force on Civil Rights History has already issued a
recommendation that Jacksonville should do more “to promote and educate citizens and visitors
about Jacksonville’s rich Civil Rights History.”1 Among other recommendations, the Task Force
urged participation in the U.S. Civil Rights Trail and establishment of a Civil Rights District
Campus.

In light of the preceding observations, the future of Jacksonville’s monuments to the

Confederacy currently located in James Weldon Johnson Park, Springfield Park, and the Old
City Cemetery should be determined as part of a comprehensive plan, building on the work of
the Civil Rights History Task Force and other groups and partners that are already engaged in
preserving, restoring, and interpreting the history of Jacksonville’s people and public spaces.

The three monuments in question and the public spaces that they occupy are directly relevant to
the goals articulated by the earlier Task Force. The monuments themselves are valuable to these

1
TASK FORCE ON CIVIL RIGHTS HISTORY, “FINAL REPORT,” (JUNE 2018), 8.
http://apps2.coj.net/City_Council_Public_Notices_Repository/20180620%20Final%20Report
%20TaskForceCivilRightsHist.pdf

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goals, whether they are ultimately allowed to remain in place, are removed or are reinterpreted or
recontextualized. These monuments to inequality, Jim Crow, and the Lost Cause illustrate the
history of the struggle for civil rights in Jacksonville: they preserve the memory of the attitudes
that have had to be and are still being overcome to achieve greater equality. They offer tangible
proof of the urgent importance of the goals of the commission.

To be clear, these monuments must no longer stand as they have, in celebration of the
Confederacy. Their value and potential usefulness to a comprehensive “Civil Rights District”
plan, as envisioned by the task force, should guide decision making. The monuments themselves
may be assets for grant proposals or leverage for fund-raising for removal or reuse; they may be
valuable as historical materials for use in reinterpretation of the city’s history and public art
spaces.

In short, the City of Jacksonville should decide the future of the monuments purposefully. Their
future utilization should be part of a comprehensive plan that builds on previous and ongoing
initiatives to create a Civil Rights District as part of the U.S. Civil Rights Trail. It should
highlight both the champions of Jacksonville’s civil rights history and the adversaries and
intolerance that people faced in the historic spaces of our city.

Generally, we believe the City of Jacksonville should:

 Plan and develop a Civil Rights District or similar historic concept, incorporating the
above-named parks and other possible sites;
 Solicit partners (schools, universities, scholars, museums, non-profits, etc.) to participate
in developing interpretive plans and materials for these sites;
 Seek funding to support a comprehensive artistic/monumental plan for the interpretation
of these spaces and to fund specific plans for the removal and/or artistic and historical
reinterpretation of the Confederate monuments in JWJ and Springfield Parks;
 Seek ways to develop the cultural, commercial, and economic value of a coherent Civil
Rights District or similar historic concept;
 Retain ownership and control of its monuments to the Confederacy until such time as the
City of Jacksonville approves a detailed plan for the removal, transfer, or reuse that
serves the public’s interest and does not honor the memory of the Confederacy;
 Consider reuses of its Confederate monuments that alter or modify the originals
physically, including by separating or removing components of these works (e.g.,
removing a statue from its column and pedestal);
 Seek a definitive opinion from the State that the City of Jacksonville is the legal trustee of
the monuments and that the State relinquishes any claim it may have on ownership of the
monuments.

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Conversely, we believe the City of Jacksonville should not:

 Spend any public money to subsidize the removal or transfer of Confederate monuments
to private ownership;
 Surrender control of the monuments to private groups for removal or reuse.

David Jamison, Ph.D., Assistant Professor

Edward Waters College

Caitlín Doherty, Executive Director Scott Brown, Ph.D., Associate Professor

MOCA Jacksonville University of North Florida

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 Appendix A

Overview of Working Group’s Discussion

I. Confederate Monument Location: James Weldon Johnson Park - Downtown

A. Issues/Challenges to be Addressed:

i. What should be done with the Hemming Statue and associated plaques?
ii. What should be done with the base of the statue?
iii. Does the City have uncontested and documented ownership of the monument and
base?

B. Challenges/Obstacles:

i. Local special interest groups interested in reuse or return to a heritage site.

ii. Cost to remove the base.

C. Ideas/Proposals:

i. Proposal #1: Reimagine the park with grant funding for the placement of pieces
of artwork vs. statues or monuments of a person that would recontextualize the
Confederate history or meaning of the current monument.

ii. Proposal #2: Move all three monuments to Springfield Park and do nothing with
the historical markers.

iii. Proposal #3: Plaque at monument itself to contextualize the history of the base
and column as artifacts of Jacksonville’s Great Fire of 1901.

II. Monument to the Women of the Southland (Monument to the Women of the
Confederacy) Location: Springfield Park in Springfield

A. Issues Addressed:

i. Is the monument too intertwined with Confederate mythology to be

recontextualized?
ii. Does its high aesthetic value and expense demand that it remain in place?
iii. Is it too expensive to move?
iv. Can Springfield Park be refurbished to showcase a repurposed monument?

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 B. Challenges/Obstacles:

i. Size of monument and potential cost of removal or transfer to another location.

ii. Psychic trauma of the park’s current location.
iii. Condition of park.

C. Ideas/Proposals:

i. Proposal #1: Rededicate the monument in a public ceremony to celebrate all

women of the Southland. Create plaque acknowledging the work’s racist past as
well as the City’s conscious attempt to re-inscribe that legacy. Recontextualize it
to incorporate people of all backgrounds. Keep the new official name Springfield
Park, but rededicate the park to women. Promote the park as a safe women’s
space. Have patrols keep walkways clean. Significant investment in park to
refurbish and add amenities and infrastructure. Re-name Confederate Road.

ii. Proposal #2: Build on ideas of rededication articulated in Proposal #1, but there
may be a need to physically transform the monument to make it serve the City of
Jacksonville in the future.

III. Grandstand – Confederate Memorial Services

A. Issues Addressed:

i. Who has dominion over this space?

ii. Should the site’s past affect how we treat the structure? or
iii. Would simple removal of explicit Confederate terminology erase the monument’s
Confederate legacy?
iv. Whose job will it be to ensure that private parties do not restore it to a
Confederate memorial site?
v. Should the city intervene with veteran burial sites in any way?

B. Challenges/Obstacles:

i. Ordinance No. 8, 65, passed on April 7, 1902 – three trustees from the Daughters
of the Confederacy were to be selected to manage the Confederate Section of the
cemetery as designated in the Ordinance. Only Confederate veterans may be
buried in the property designated.
ii. Involvement of Grandstand in sacral space.

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 iii. Is the City prepared to provide security?
iv. Is the city prepared to work out agreements with Confederate heritage groups?

C. Ideas/Proposals:

i. Proposal #1: Remove Confederate plaques or terms placed at the monument but
otherwise do not alter it.

ii. Proposal #2: Remove all Confederate references and re-dedicate the grandstand
to the memory of the scores of veterans from all wars, except the American
Revolution and the War of 1812, buried in the Old City Cemetery, which includes
perhaps the largest number of United States Colored Troup (“USCT”) burials in
Florida.

iii. Proposal #3: Leave monument as is.