Groups want Confederate monument to rise again and commissioners ousted

A coalition of groups supporting Confederate monuments gathered outside of the Manatee County Historic Courthouse on Tuesday to announce a new initiative that calls on the board of county commissioners to reverse their vote and put the Bradenton monument back where it was.

Commissioners voted 4-3 last week to move the 22-foot obelisk statue into storage before deciding on a permanent location, citing concern for public safety. Crews worked overnight to haul away the statue — which bore the names Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee — but as the statue was being lifted, the top spire fell and broke into two pieces.

With flags waving and signs that read, “Americans Build Monuments. We Don’t Remove Them!,” a dozen people stood under the gazebo that sits just feet away from where the Confederate monument stood.

A petition started by Save Southern Heritage’s Tampa-based Florida chapter had garnered nearly 2,000 signatures as of noon Tuesday, demanding the resignations of Commission Chairwoman Betsy Benac; Commissioner Charles Smith, who led the effort on the commission to remove the monument; and County Administrator Ed Hunzeker. The commission is currently seeking a replacement for Hunzeker as his contract expires in January.

The coalition created an initiative called “RESTORE,” asking that the monument be fixed and re-erected in its spot, which now has freshly planted coontie ferns. Representatives from the Manatee Minutemen, the Paul Revere Society, Save Their Honor and the Sons of Confederate Veterans were also present, according to a press release.

“We’re here to stand up and reverse this trend and say, ‘Enough is enough,’” said Lunelle McCallister, with Save Their Honor.

It’s personal for McCallister, who said her relative Francis Burdette Hagan was a drummer and a part of the Cow Calvary, driving cattle for the Confederate army.

“(Monuments) represent cenotaphs, gravestones where no graves exist,” she said. “They’re places where people like me can show respects to their family and fellow combatants in the military.”

St. Petersburg immigration attorney Andy Strickland, who was representing Veterans’ Monuments of America, said the vote to move the monument was “ill-advised” and “potentially illegal.”

County attorney Mickey Palmer said that statement is “simply wrong.”

“Had it been an illegal vote, I would have appropriately advised my client that it was an illegal vote,” Palmer told the Bradenton Herald Tuesday afternoon.

Strickland continued, saying that he believes groups “will not stop until they have removed the Stars and Stripes from that flag.”

“That monument is just the first step of removing the flag,” Strickland said.

Before ending the press conference with a rendition of “God Bless America,” Barbara Hemingway, with America First-Team Manatee, said that “radical” groups wanted to “erase and destroy our history and the heritage of our community and our state.”

“History can’t be broken, divided or revised to accommodate anyone’s political or personal agenda,” she said.

This story was originally published August 29, 2017 at 1:31 PM with the headline "Groups want Confederate monument to rise again and commissioners ousted."