COLUMBUS, Ga. (AP) – The mayor of a Georgia city says the city will not remove a memorial to the Civil War dead, after a letter from the local NAACP chapter president asked for the removal of all Confederate symbols.
The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer reports that Columbus NAACP President Tonza Thomas sent an email to Columbus Mayor Teresa Thomlinson on Thursday, following the violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Tomlinson replied that her decision rests on her investigation of the memorial before last weekend’s events. She says the memorial was erected by family and friends of the dead – not the government – in 1879, prior to the Jim Crow era that saw the construction of many contentious Confederate monuments.
She also said the city doesn’t sanction Confederate flags on public property.