Confederate monument draws suitors

Mayor Greg Fischer's arts commission heard from about two-dozen people, some from as far as away as Virginia, on Monday as it searches for a new location for Louisville's controversial 121-year-old Confederate monument.

Most suggestions came from Brandenburg, Ky., officials, who said they would welcome the monument, which currently stands near the University of Louisville, as a tourism boon that fits with the city's Civil War history and riverfront.

"We feel like we would be a very good home for this monument, we have a re-enactment every two years and it would be very visible," Brandenburg Mayor Ronnie Joyner told the commission.

A handful of speakers contested Fischer's decision to move the Confederate monument as a bow to "political correctness," while others said they would help "obliterate" it if necessary. Most speakers, however, appealed for the commission to hand the monument over to either a historic battlefield, cemetery or another appropriate location in Kentucky.

"If you're a Civil War buff, you like the idea of it being in a battlefield," said state Rep. Steve Riggs, D-Louisville, who suggested that it be placed at the Perryville Battlefield State Park. "Perryville has more tourists than anybody, and it would receive great publicity if we give the monument over to them."

Others suggested that the monument remain in Jefferson County but be placed in a spot that honors other Confederate soldiers such as a museum, historical society or Cave Hill Cemetery.

►RELATED: Where should the Confederate monument be moved?

"My only hope is that it's put someplace that children, future generations, can see it, talk about it and learn from it," said Louisville resident Susan Ritchie. "It needs to be seen. We need to learn from our history, we can't slam the door or throw away the key on the Holocaust Museum or other terrible parts of our history."

Paducah resident John Suttler, a spokesman for the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said his far Western Kentucky city should be considered as the monument's new home. Matthew Hankins, a spokesman for the Ratcliffe Foundation, a non-profit based in southwest Virginia, said his group wouldn't mind taking it either.

Author Emily Bingham, a former U of L trustee, said she was disappointed this conversation wasn't brought to the arts commission before Fischer made his decision. She said as a historian the monument shouldn't be "eliminated," but she acknowledged the "deep feelings of hurt and insult" such sites conjure for some residents.

"The best thing I can think of is it be dismantled and the specifically artistic parts be preserved and given an interpretation of its history and how this came about," Bingham said.

►RELATED: What ''s the story behind the Confederate monument?

A Jefferson County judge ruled in June that Fischer had the authority to remove the monument honoring Confederate soldiers. There is no "legal impediment" barring the city from removing the monument, according to Jefferson County Attorney Mike O'Connell's office, but Fischer officials have agreed not to take any action until the city finds a new site.

Louisville arts commission chairwoman Anna Tatman said none of the locations that have been suggested for the Confederate monument to go have been vetted. She said the arts commission will forward a list of recommendations to Fischer within the coming month, but that no timetable has been set.

"I really want it to be re-erected at a site with the context it deserves," Tatman said in an interview. "We're often faced with artistic expressions that raise some sort of ire, and art is meant to create those conversations."

Other arts commission members who spoke leaned toward a similar position, saying that the Confederate monument serves a role and needs to be kept in Louisville.

Commission member Theo Edmonds, co-founder of IDEAS xLAB, an arts innovation company, said art is about power and that it needs to be reinterpreted in part by African-American arts and other groups.

"... I think we must use this to confront our own history head on," he said.

The 70-foot-tall Confederate monument has sparked a debate about race, slavery and the role of historic sites, some of which made its way into the discussion on where it should go next.

"That monument no longer represents the Confederacy," said Albert Burke, a Louisville resident. "In the sense that nobody in the past 150 years is going to defend the values of the Confederacy, they were wrong and they lost. That monument stands in recognition of the young men who died fighting for their comrades."

Dwayne Bell, the only African American who addressed the arts commission, said as a U.S. military veteran he would volunteer to help dispose of the monument in the Ohio River.

"I don't particularly care to see the Confederate flag or anything Confederate," Bell said. "If you need help dropping it in the river, I'm more than willing."

Reporter Phillip M. Bailey can be reached at (502) 582-4475 or pbailey@courier-journal.com