Following violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, then-Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed announced the formation of an advisory committee. The Advisory Committee on City of Atlanta Street Names and Monuments Associated with the Confederacy was co-chaired by Atlanta History Center CEO Sheffield Hale and Center for Civil and Human Rights CEO Derreck Kayongo. It was tasked with making recommendations for a variety of monuments on city property and street names throughout Atlanta. Members of the advisory committee were appointed by both Mayor Reed and the Atlanta City Council.
The committee had four public meetings to discuss the future of Confederate monuments and street names and released a full report outlining research and recommendations.
Research
City of Atlanta committee staff conducted research on all street names under consideration, working to identify, when possible, the origin of the street name. Atlanta History Center staff, meanwhile, researched the monuments under consideration using a variety of archival and online sources. The monument interpretation template was used as a guide. City staff conducted additional research on the civic organizations that commissioned the various monuments as well as legal considerations facing the City. All this research was presented by city staff at the advisory committee meetings, which were open to the public. A summary of the research is in the committee’s full report.
Public Comment
Each meeting began with a public comment period so that interested community members could express their thoughts and opinions. Meetings were televised for anyone unable to attend in person. Public comment was also accepted through a City email address; these comments were distributed to members of the committee and posted online by City staff prior to the final meeting.
Recommendations
A summary of the recommendations of the committee is in the full report. In summary, the committee recommended contextualizing two monuments, removing two monuments to City storage, altering the street renaming process, and renaming certain streets immediately.
Implementation of the recommendations was delegated to a City Council subcommittee in July 2018 consisting of Council members Natalyn Archibong, Michael Julian Bond, and Carla Smith. The first recommendation to be implemented was changing the street name Confederate Avenue, formal consideration of which by the City Council began in August 2018. The renaming was approved by legislation passed by the full Council on October 1, 2018 and signed by Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on October 3, 2018.
Grassroots activists had been advocating for this change prior to the formation of the Advisory Committee and successfully canvassed the neighborhood to get the required approval of street residents. In coordination with Councilmember Carla Smith, the neighborhood collectively decided to rename the street United Avenue.
Contextualization
State law O.C.G.A. § 50-3-1 barred the recommended removal of the Peace Monument in Piedmont Park and the Peachtree Battle Avenue monument. The City Council subcommittee opted to contextualize these two monuments instead. Atlanta History Center worked with the City to develop outdoor exhibition panels for these two monuments.
After conducting extensive research, Atlanta History Center staff drafted several pages of historical information that could be discussed in the contextualization panels. Staff then reworked this information into two outdoor exhibition panels for the Peace Monument and one outdoor exhibition panel for Peachtree Battle Avenue monument. These exhibition panels pay special attention the Reconciliation movement, the sentiments of which spurred the creation of both monuments.
While the Reconciliation movement aimed to unite North and South following the Civil War, this reunion coincided with the implementation of segregation laws that revived the pre-Civil War social order of white political and social dominance. Both monuments describe the Reconciliation movement in the spirit of “national fraternity” or call the reunion “perfected.” This language ignores the cause of the Civil War and essentially says that segregation, which denied civil and social rights to millions of Americans, was part of a perfect union. Text for the exhibition panels was carefully reviewed and edited by staff experts and presented to the City Council subcommittee in draft form in October 2018. A final draft followed in January 2019 that also included the design, mock-ups, and images for the panels.
Two other monuments, the Lion of Atlanta and the Confederate Obelisk in Oakland Cemetery, were originally recommended for contextualization by the Advisory Committee, since they were part of an early memorialization movement of the 1870s. This earlier movement focused on mourning loss of life with monuments usually placed within cemeteries. The obelisk stands in the middle of the Confederate section of the cemetery and includes the simple inscription “Our Confederate Dead,” while the Lion of Atlanta serves as a tombstone for 3,000 unknown Confederate dead.
The Historic Oakland Foundation, along with assistance from independent scholars as well as scholars from Kennesaw State University and Georgia State University, developed contextualization panels for these two cemetery monuments. These monuments were already part of the cemetery’s walking tours, so these panels provide further opportunities to engage interested visitors.
All finalized panels were approved by the Atlanta City Council subcommittee in May 2019 and were installed August 2, 2019. Funding for the fabrication of all panels was provided by Atlanta History Center.
Peace Monuments panels can be viewed here.
States with laws protecting Confederate Monuments: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee. More information about these laws can be found here.
The below at-a-glance examples represent a few ways that cities and universities within these 6 states that prohibit removal have chosen to address the Confederate monument controversy.
Examples:
Savannah, Georgia
Decatur, Georgia
University of Mississippi, Oxford, Mississippi
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Raleigh, North Carolina State Capitol monuments
Memphis, Tennessee
Richmond, Virginia*
*Virginia law prohibited the removal of Confederate monuments until March 2020.