BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) – Alabama’s attorney general sued the city of Birmingham and its mayor Wednesday for obscuring a Confederate monument in a downtown park, citing a new state law that protects such markers.
“The city of Birmingham does not have the right to violate the law and leaves my office with no choice but to file suit,” Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a statement.
Legislators passed a law earlier this year prohibiting the removal of historical structures including rebel memorials. So Birmingham Mayor William Bell ordered the city’s 52-foot-tall Confederate obelisk in Linn Park Memorial covered with wooden panels.
The box-like structure covers a panel that says the memorial to Confederate soldiers and sailors was dedicated in 1905 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. City workers began installing the structure Tuesday, just days after deadly violence over a Confederate monument in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Marshall said his office determined that city had “altered” or “otherwise disturbed’ the memorial in violation of the letter and spirit of the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act.