Removal of Confederate monuments and memorials

There are more than 160 Confederate monuments and memorials to the Confederate States of America (CSA; the Confederacy) and associated figures that have been removed from public spaces in the United States, all but five of them since 2015. Some have been removed by state and local governments; others have been torn down by protestors.

More than seven hundred monuments and memorials have been created on public land, the vast majority in the South during the era of Jim Crow laws from 1877 to 1964. Efforts to remove them began after the Charleston church shooting, the Unite the Right rally, and the murder of George Floyd later increased.

Proponents of the removal of the monuments cite historical analysis which supports their belief that the monuments were not built as memorials, instead, they were built to intimidate African Americans and reaffirm white supremacy after the Civil War; and that they memorialize an unrecognized, treasonous government, the Confederacy, whose founding principle was the perpetuation and expansion of slavery. They also argue that the presence of these memorials more than a hundred years after the defeat of the Confederacy continues to disenfranchise and alienate African Americans.^{[excessive citations]} However, opponents believe that the removal of the monuments is the erasure of history, or they believe that it is a sign of disrespect for their Southern heritage. Some Southern states passed state laws restricting or prohibiting the removal or alteration of public monuments.

According to The Washington Post, five Confederate monuments were removed after the Civil War, eight in the two years after the Charleston shooting, 48 in the three years after the Unite the Right rally, and 110 in the two years after George Floyd's murder. In 2022, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said he would order the renaming of U.S. military bases which are named after Confederate generals, as well as the renaming of other Defense Department property that honors Confederates.

The campaign to remove monuments has been extended beyond the United States; around the world, many statues and other public works of art which are related to the transatlantic slave trade and European colonialism have been removed or destroyed.

Background

Most of the Confederate monuments on public land were built during periods of racial conflict, such as the period when Jim Crow laws were being passed during the late 19th century as well as at the start of the 20th century or the period of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. These two periods also coincided with the 50th and 100th year after the end of the Civil War, including the American Civil War Centennial. The peak in construction of Civil War monuments occurred between the late 1890s up to 1920, with a second smaller peak in the late-1950s to mid-1960s.

Academic commentary

In an August 2017 statement on the monuments controversy, the American Historical Association (AHA) said that to remove a monument "is not to erase history, but rather to alter or call attention to a previous interpretation of history". The AHA said that most monuments were erected "without anything resembling a democratic process", and recommended that it was "time to reconsider these decisions". Most Confederate monuments were erected during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, and this undertaking was "part and parcel of the initiation of legally mandated segregation and widespread disenfranchisement across the South". Memorials to the Confederacy erected during this period "were intended, in part, to obscure the terrorism required to overthrow Reconstruction, and to intimidate African Americans politically and isolate them from the mainstream of public life". A later wave of monument building coincided with the civil rights movement, and according to the AHA, "these symbols of white supremacy are still being invoked for similar purposes."

Michael J. McAfee, curator of history at the West Point Museum, said, "There are no monuments that mention the name Benedict Arnold. What does this have to do with the Southern monuments honoring the political and military leaders of the Confederacy? They, like Arnold, were traitors. They turned their backs on their nation, their oaths, and the sacrifices of their ancestors in the War for Independence.... They attempted to destroy their nation to defend chattel slavery and from a sense that as white men they were innately superior to all other races. They fought for white racial supremacy. That is why monuments glorifying them and their cause should be removed. Leave monuments marking their participation on the battlefields of the war, but tear down those that only commemorate the intolerance, violence, and hate that inspired their attempt to destroy the American nation."

University of Chicago historian Jane Dailey wrote that in many cases the purpose of the monuments was not to celebrate the past but rather to promote a "white supremacist future". Civil War historian Judith Giesberg, professor of history at Villanova University agrees: "White supremacy is really what these statues represent."

Historian Karyn Cox of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte has written that the monuments are "a legacy of the brutally racist Jim Crow era". University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill historian James Leloudis wrote, "The funders and backers of these monuments are very explicit that they are requiring a political education and a legitimacy for the Jim Crow era and the right of white men to rule."

Adam Goodheart, Civil War author and director of the Starr Center at Washington College, told National Geographic, "They're 20th-century artifacts in the sense that a lot of it had to do with a vision of national unity that embraced Southerners as well as Northerners, but importantly still excluded black people." Goodheart said that the statues were meant to be symbols of white supremacy and the rallying around them by white supremacists will likely hasten their demise. Eleanor Harvey, a senior curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and a scholar of Civil War history, said, "If white nationalists and neo-Nazis are now claiming this as part of their heritage, they have essentially co-opted those images and those statues beyond any capacity to neutralize them again".

Elijah Anderson, a professor of sociology at Yale University, said the statues' continued existence "really impacts the psyche of black people". Harold Holzer, the director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, argued that this was intentional: the statues were designed to belittle African Americans. Dell Upton, chair of the Department of Art History at the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote that "the monuments were not intended as public art," but rather were installed "as affirmations that the American polity was a white polity," and that because of their explicitly white supremacist intent, their removal from civic spaces was a matter "of justice, equity, and civic values".

Historians Ethan J. Kytle and Blain Roberts asked:

Why, in the year 2015, should communal spaces in the South continue to be sullied by tributes to those who defended slavery? How can Americans ignore the pain that black citizens, especially, must feel when they walk by the Calhoun Monument or any similar statues, on their way to work, school or Bible study?

In a 1993 book on the issue in Georgia, author Frank McKenney argued otherwise: "These monuments were communal efforts, public art, and social history," he wrote. Ex-soldiers and politicians had difficult time raising funds to erect monuments so the task mostly fell to the women, the "mothers widows, and orphans, the bereaved fiancees and sisters" of the soldiers who had died. Many ladies' memorial associations were formed in the decades following the end of the Civil War, most of them joining the United Daughters of the Confederacy following its inception in 1894. The women were advised to "remember that they were buying art, not metal and stone."

Cheryl Benard, president of the Alliance for the Restoration of Cultural Heritage, argued against the removal of Confederate war monuments in an op-ed written for The National Interest: "From my vantage point, the idea that the way to deal with history is to destroy any relics that remind you of something you don't like, is highly alarming."

Civil War historian James I. Robertson Jr. said that the monuments were not a "Jim Crow signal of defiance". He called the current climate to dismantle or destroy Confederate monuments as an "age of idiocy", motivated by "elements hell-bent on tearing apart unity that generations of Americans have painfully constructed".

But Dell Upton argues that the monuments celebrated only one side of the story, one that was "openly pro-Confederate". The monuments were erected without the consent or even input of Southern African-Americans, who remembered the Civil War far differently, and who had no interest in honoring those who fought to keep them enslaved. Robert Seigler, who documented more than 170 Confederate monuments in South Carolina, found only five dedicated to the African Americans who had been used by the Confederacy to build fortifications or "had served as musicians, teamsters, cooks, servants, and in other capacities". Four of those were to slaves and one to a musician, Henry Brown.

Alfred Brophy, a professor of law at the University of Alabama, argued the removal of the Confederate statues "facilitates forgetting," although these statues were "re-inscribed images of white supremacy". Brophy said that the Lee statue in Charlottesville should be removed.

Julian Hayter, a historian at the University of Richmond, supports a different approach for the statues: re-contextualization. He supports adding a "footnote of epic proportions" such as a prominent historical sign or marker that explains the context in which they were built to help people see old monuments in a new light. "I'm suggesting we use the scale and grandeur of those monuments against themselves. I think we lack imagination when we talk about memorials. It's all or nothin'.... As if there's nothin' in between that we could do to tell a more enriching story about American history."

History

Just five Confederate memorials were removed in the century-and-a-half after the Civil War. The modern effort to remove them was sparked by the Charleston church shooting of 2015. In the two years that followed, eight memorials were removed. In the city of New Orleans, a crane had to be brought in from an unidentified out-of-state company as no local company wanted the business.

The removal movement was further galvanized by the August 2017 Unite the Right rally, which gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, to protest the proposed removal of its Robert Edward Lee statue. The rally saw deadly violence and the public display of white supremacist symbols. Within days, other cities moved to remove similar memorials. In Baltimore, for example, the city's Confederate statues were removed on the night of August 15–16, 2017. Mayor Catherine Pugh said that she ordered the overnight removals to preserve public safety. Similarly, in Lexington, Kentucky, Mayor Jim Gray asked the city council on August 16, 2017, to approve the removal of two statues from a courthouse.

Within three years of the Charleston shooting, at least 114 Confederate monuments were removed from public spaces, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which published an extensive report in 2016 of Confederate memorials in public spaces and keeps an up-to-date list online. Texas removed 31, more than any other state.

A 2017 Reuters poll found that 54% of American adults stated that the monuments should remain in all public spaces, and 27% said they should be removed, while 19% said they were unsure. According to Reuters, "responses to the poll were sharply split along racial and party lines, however, with whites and Republicans largely supportive of preservation. Democrats and minorities were more likely to support removal." Another 2017 poll, by HuffPost/YouGov, found that 48% of respondents favored the "remain" option, 33% favored removal, and 18% were unsure. An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll released in 2017 found that most Americans, including 44% of African Americans, believe that statues honoring leaders of the Confederacy should remain in place.

In 2017, Jason Spencer, a white member of the Georgia legislature, told an African-American colleague that if she continued calling for removal of Confederate monuments, she wouldn't be "met with torches but something a lot more definitive," and that people who want the statues gone "will go missing in the Okefenokee....Don't say I didn't warn you."

Various groups of proponents met March 22–24, 2018, in New Orleans "to commemorate, celebrate and strategically align Take 'Em Down efforts". A second such conference was held March 22–24, 2019, in Jacksonville, Florida.

In April 2020, a study found that Confederate monuments were more likely to be removed in localities that had a large black and Democratic population, a chapter of the NAACP, and Southern state legislatures that have the power to decree removal. Public support for removal increased during the George Floyd protests, with 52% in favor of removal, and 44% opposed.

Most of the removals have been undertaken by state and local governments, while a relative few memorials were pulled down by protestors. For example, the bust of Robert E. Lee in Fort Myers, Florida, was toppled by unknown parties during the night of March 11–12, 2019. At least three were demolished by protestors in states that had passed laws to make it more difficult to legally remove them: Silent Sam, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; the Confederate Soldiers Monument in Durham, North Carolina; and the Screven County Confederate Dead Monument, in Sylvania, Georgia. The latter two were damaged beyond repair, while Silent Sam, which was not seriously damaged, was placed in storage, awaiting a political decision on its fate. The "Confederate Dead Monument" was replaced through funds raised by the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

Years	Removals
1865–2009	2
2009–2014	3
2015 (after Charleston church shooting)	4
2016	4
2017 (year of the Unite the Right rally)	36
2018	8
2019	4
2020 (after murder of George Floyd)	94
2021	17
2022	16

Legal impediments

Seven states have passed laws that impede or forbid the removal or alteration of public Confederate monuments. Laws in Georgia (early 20th century), North Carolina (2015), and Alabama (2017) prohibit removal or alteration. Laws in South Carolina (2000), Mississippi (2004), and Tennessee (2013, updated 2016) impede such actions.

A 1902 law in Virginia was repealed in 2020; other attempts to repeal state laws have not been successful.

In 2023, Florida Republican Dean Black filed legislation that would punish any lawmakers who vote to remove "historical monuments and memorials". Under this bill, if local lawmakers vote in favor of the removal of Confederate statues, they may be fined or removed from office by the governor. The bill died in committee in March 2024.

Tennessee law

In 2016, Tennessee passed its Tennessee Heritage Protection Act, which requires a two-thirds majority of the Tennessee Historical Commission to rename, remove, or move any public statue, monument, or memorial. A 2018 amendment passed in response to events in Memphis (see below) prohibits municipalities from selling or transferring ownership of memorials without a waiver, and "allows any entity, group or individual with an interest in a Confederate memorial to seek an injunction to preserve the memorial in question". The New York Times wrote in 2018 that the Tennessee act shows "an express intent to prevent municipalities in Tennessee from taking down Confederate memorials".

As of 2022, the Tennessee Historical Commission has considered seven petitions to remove a Confederate monument and approved just one: for the Forrest bust in the state capitol.

South Carolina law

The removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina capitol required a two-thirds vote of both houses of the legislature, as would the removal of any other Confederate monument in South Carolina.

North Carolina law

A state law, the Cultural History Artifact Management and Patriotism Act of 2015, prevents local governments from removing monuments on public property, and places limits on their movement within the property. In August 2017, Governor Roy Cooper asked the North Carolina Legislature to repeal the law, writing: "I don't pretend to know what it's like for a person of color to pass by one of these monuments and consider that those memorialized in stone and metal did not value my freedom or humanity. Unlike an African-American father, I'll never have to explain to my daughters why there exists an exalted monument for those who wished to keep her and her ancestors in chains...We cannot continue to glorify a war against the United States of America fought in the defense of slavery. These monuments should come down." He also asked the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources to "determine the cost and logistics of removing Confederate monuments from state property". Cooper later removed, on the grounds of public safety, three Confederate monuments at the North Carolina Capitol that the legislature had in effect made illegal to remove.

After the University of North Carolina renamed Saunders Hall in 2014 (see below), its Board of Trustees prohibited further renamings for 16 years.

In 2019, North Carolina's law prohibiting monument removal was challenged indirectly. The Confederate Soldiers Monument in Winston-Salem was removed as a public nuisance, and a similar monument in Pittsboro was removed after a court ruled that it had never become county property, so the statute did not apply.

Virginia law

On March 8, 2020, the Virginia legislature "passed measures that would undo an existing state law that protects the monuments and instead let local governments decide their fate". On April 11, 2020, Governor Ralph Northam signed the bill into law, which went into effect on July 1. Previously, the state law had prohibited local governments from taking the monuments down, moving them, or even adding placards explaining why they were erected.

Alabama law

Alabama's law, the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act, was passed in May 2017. On January 14, 2019, a circuit judge ruled that the law is an un-Constitutional infringement on the City of Birmingham's right to free speech, and cannot be enforced. On November 27, 2019, the Alabama Supreme Court reversed that ruling by a vote of nine to zero. In their decision, the court stated that "a municipality has no individual, substantive constitutional rights and that the trial court erred by holding that the City has constitutional rights to free speech."

Unsuccessful federal legislation

On July 22, 2020, amid the George Floyd protests, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 305–113 to remove a bust of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney from the old robing room next to the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the Capitol Building. The bill (H.R. 7573 (116th)) would also have removed statues honoring Confederate figures and create a "process to obtain a bust of [Justice Thurgood] Marshall...and place it there within a minimum of two years." The bill reached the Republican-led Senate on July 30, 2020 (S.4382 (116th)) and was referred to the Committee on Rules and Administration, which took no further action on it.

Vestigial pedestals

The empty pedestals or plinths left after monument removal have met various fates.

In Baltimore, one of the four empty plinths was used in 2017 for a statue of a pregnant black woman, naked from the waist up, holding a baby in a brightly covered sling on her back, with a raised golden fist: Madre Luz (Mother Light). The statue was first placed in front of the monument before its removal, then raised to the pedestal. Artist Pablo Machioli said "his original idea was to construct a pregnant mother as a symbol of life. 'I feel like people would understand and respect that'". The statue was vandalized several times before it was removed by the city.

For the toppled Silent Sam monument at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, two scholars proposed leaving the "empty pedestal — shorn all original images and inscriptions — [which] eliminates the offending tribute while still preserving a record of what these communities did and where they did it.... The most effective way to commemorate the rise and fall of white supremacist monument-building is to preserve unoccupied pedestals as the ruins that they are — broken tributes to a morally bankrupt cause." Instead, the plinth and its plaques were removed on January 14, 2019, at the direction of university Chancellor Carol Folt.

The plinths of the statues in Richmond, Virginia, were removed in 2022. In some of Richmond's Monument Avenue intersections, the spotlights remain—pointed upward toward now-empty space.

List of removals

National

In 2000, the U.S. Army renamed Forrest Road - named for Confederate general and Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest - at Fort Bliss after receiving complaints. The road was renamed Cassidy Road after Lt. Gen. Richard T. Cassidy, a former post commander.

In February 2020, the commandant of the Marine Corps, General David H. Berger, ordered "the removal of all Confederate-related paraphernalia from Marine Corps installations", including Confederate flags, bumper stickers, and "similar items".

The U.S. Navy has similarly prohibited the display of the Confederate flag, including as bumper stickers on private cars on base; a wave of corporate product re-branding has also ensued.

In 2021, Congress ordered the Defense Department to establish a commission to consider whether to rename various bases, ships, buildings, streets, and other things named to honor Confederate figures. In 2022, this Naming Commission recommended changing the names of nine Army bases, two Navy ships, and other items. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin pledged to follow the commission's recommendations.

In May 2022, the first part of the Naming Commission's report recommended changing the names of nine Army bases:

• Fort Benning, Georgia, was renamed Fort Moore, in honor of Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and his wife Julia Moore. However, on March 3rd, 2025, the name was restored, being named for Corporal Fred G. Benning rather than Henry L. Benning.
• Fort Bragg, originally named in honor of Confederate General Braxton Bragg, was renamed Fort Liberty in 2023. The Fort was renamed back to Fort Bragg in honor of WWII veteran Roland L. Bragg.
• Fort Gordon, Georgia, was renamed Fort Eisenhower. However, the name was later reverted, honoring Sergeant Gary Gordon rather than John B. Gordon.
• Fort A. P. Hill, Virginia, was renamed Fort Walker, in honor of Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, the first female Army surgeon. The name was later reverted though, now standing for Fort Anderson-Pinn-Hill, honoring three Union soldiers: Lieutenant Colonel Edward Hill, First Sergeant Robert A. Pinn, and Private Bruce Anderson. The name was formerly credited to Confederate Lieutenant General A. P. Hill.
• Fort Hood, Texas, was renamed Fort Cavazos, in honor of Gen. Richard E. Cavazos, who won the Distinguished Service Cross during the Korean War. But was later reverted to honor Colonel Robert B. Hood, as opposed to John Bell Hood.
• Fort Lee, Virginia, was renamed Fort Gregg-Adams on April 27, 2023, in honor of Lt. Gen. Arthur J. Gregg and Lt. Col. Charity Adams But was later renamed, honoring Spanish-American War soldier Fitz Lee, as opposed to Robert E. Lee.
• Fort Pickett, Virginia, was renamed Fort Barfoot on March 24, 2023, in honor of Colonel Van T. Barfoot, who received the Medal of Honor for service during World War II. The name was later reverted to honor WWII Soldier Vernon W. Pickett, instead of George Pickett.
• Fort Polk, Louisiana, was renamed Fort Johnson, in honor of Sgt. William Henry Johnson, who performed heroically in the first African American unit of the United States Army to engage in combat in World War I. But the name was reverted to honor Gen. James H. Polk instead of Leonidas Polk.
• Fort Rucker, Alabama, was renamed Fort Novosel on April 10, 2023, in honor of Army aviator CW4 Michael J. Novosel, who received the Medal of Honor for service in Vietnam. However, the name was reverted, honoring Captain Edward W. Rucker as opposed to Edmund Rucker.

The last of these changes were finalized in June 2025.

By December 2022, the Naming Commission had also directed the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, to rename buildings, roads, and other facilities. West Point also removed several displays related to former superintendent Robert E. Lee, including a portrait, bust, quotation, and bronze panels depicting him and members of the Ku Klux Klan.

Alabama

• Alabama State Capitol, Montgomery: On June 24, 2015, in the wake of the Charleston church shooting on June 17, 2015, on the order of Governor Robert J. Bentley, the four Confederate flags and their poles were removed from the Confederate Memorial Monument.
• Anniston
  • The monument to Confederate artillery officer John Pelham, erected in 1905, was removed by the city on September 27, 2020. It was rededicated March 26, 2022, on public (county) property. An Alabama law prohibiting the removal of historical monuments was deliberately broken by the city council of Anniston, Alabama.
• Birmingham
  • The Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument was erected in 1905. In the midst of the George Floyd protests, was removed by the city on June 1, 2020, in violation of the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act of 2017, a law passed specifically to prevent the removal of this monument. It was the most prominent Confederate monument in the state. The Alabama Attorney General has filed suit against the city of Birmingham for violating the statute; the city could be fined $25,000 for the violation but cannot be forced to restore the monument. Mayor Randall Woodfin said the fine would be much more affordable than the cost of continued unrest in the city.
• Demopolis
  • Confederate Park. Renamed "Confederate Park" in 1923 at the request of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. A Confederate soldier statue was erected in 1910 at the intersection of North Main Avenue and West Capital Street adjacent to the Park. It was destroyed on July 16, 2016, when a policeman accidentally crashed his patrol car into the monument. The statue fell from its pedestal and was heavily damaged. In 2017, Demopolis city government voted 3–2 to move the damaged Confederate statue to a local museum and to install a new obelisk memorial that honors both the Union and the Confederate soldiers.
• Huntsville
  • The statue of an unnamed Confederate soldier which stood outside the Madison County Courthouse in downtown Huntsville since 1905 was removed on October 23, 2020.
• Mobile
  • In 2020, a statue of Confederate Navy Admiral Raphael Semmes removed from downtown on orders of Mayor Sandy Stimpson. The $25,000 fine was paid by July 10.
• Montgomery
  • The statue of Robert E. Lee in front of the Robert E. Lee High School was removed on June 1, 2020. Four people were charged with felony criminal mischief. In November 2022, the Montgomery school board announced the school would be renamed to Dr. Percy L. Julian High School after Percy Lavon Julian.
• Tuscaloosa
  • In September 2020, the University of Alabama trustees renamed Morgan Hall, named for a Confederate general and U.S. Senator John Tyler Morgan, to the English Building.

Alaska

• Kusilvak Census Area: In 1913, Judge John Randolph Tucker named the Wade Hampton Census Area to commemorate his father-in-law. It was renamed Kusilvak Census Area in 2015 to remove a place named for a slave-holding Confederate general.

Arizona

• Picacho Peak State Park: A wooden marker dedicated to Col. Sherod Hunter's Arizona volunteers was removed by Arizona State Parks & Trails in 2015. Deterioration of the wood was the supposed cause of the removal.
• Wesley Bolin Plaza, Arizona State Capitol, Phoenix: Regifted in a letter by the UDC dated June 30, 2020, to the State stating "These monuments were gifted to the State and are now in need of repair but due to the current political climate, we believe it unwise to repair them where they are located." Removed July 22, 2020.
• Jefferson Davis Highway Marker, U.S. 60 at Peralta Road, near Apache Junction: Regifted in a letter by the UDC dated June 30, 2020, to the State stating "These monuments were gifted to the State and are now in need of repair but due to the current political climate, we believe it unwise to repair them where they are located." Removed July 22, 2020.
• Picacho Peak State Park: A brass plaque honoring Confederate soldiers who fought there was vandalized and removed in June 2020. According to officials from Arizona State Parks and Trails and the Arizona Historical Society (AHS), it will not be replaced. Stated one AHS official, "Times change. We probably put our name on a few things we shouldn't have."

Arkansas

In 2017, the Arkansas Legislature voted to stop honoring Robert E. Lee's birthday.

In 2019, the Arkansas Legislature voted to replace Arkansas's two statues in the National Statuary Hall Collection. Uriah Milton Rose, an attorney and founder of the Rose Law Firm, advised against secession, but backed the Confederacy during the war; while not a soldier or elected officeholder, he served the Confederacy as chancellor of Pulaski County, later being appointed the Confederacy's state historian. A statue of white supremacist progressive era-Governor James Paul Clarke was also removed. They will be replaced with statues of Johnny Cash and journalist and state NAACP president Daisy L. Gatson Bates, who played a key role in the integration of Little Rock's Central High School in 1957.

• Fort Smith:
• Little Rock:
  • Confederate Boulevard was renamed Springer Boulevard in 2015. The new name honors an African-American family prominent in the area since the Civil War.
  • Memorial to Company A, Capitol Guards, removed June 2020
• Pine Bluff
  • Pine Bluff Confederate Monument, removed from public area June 2020

California

• Springtown: Established 1868. Originally known as Springtown, it was renamed Confederate Corners after a group of Southerners settled there in the late 1860s. Name changed back to "Springtown" in 2018.
• Los Angeles
  • Confederate Monument, Hollywood Forever Cemetery. "Covered with a tarp and whisked away in the middle of the night after activists called for its removal and spray-painted the word 'No' on its back", August 15, 2017.
• San Diego
  • Markers of the Jefferson Davis Highway, installed in Horton Plaza in 1926 and moved to the western sidewalk of the plaza following a 2016 renovation. Following the Unite the Right rally in Virginia, the San Diego City Council removed the plaque on August 16, 2017.

District of Columbia

• U.S. Capitol, National Statuary Hall Collection
  • Alabama's statue of Confederate officer Jabez Curry was replaced by a statue of Helen Keller in 2009.
  • In 2019, the Arkansas Legislature voted to replace Arkansas's statues; see above.
  • In July 2022, Florida's statue of Edmund Kirby Smith was replaced by a statue of civil rights advocate and educator Mary McLeod Bethune.
  • On December 21, 2020, a statue of Robert E. Lee representing Virginia was removed to be replaced by a statue of civil rights activist Barbara Rose Johns.
• Confederate Memorial Hall, a brownstone row house at 1322 Vermont Avenue NW, just off Logan Circle, was a gathering place for Confederate veterans in Washington, D.C., and later, a social hall for white politicians from the South. The organization that owned it, the Confederate Memorial Association, keeps active the 1997 web page Archived October 11, 2021, at the Wayback Machine that lists paintings and artifacts at this self-designated "Confederate Embassy". The building was seized and sold in 1997 to pay $500,000 in contempt-of-court fines imposed by District of Columbia courts on association president John Edward Hurley. It then became a private residence.
• On June 19, 2020, protesters in the movement protesting the murder of George Floyd tore down the statue of Albert Pike, doused it with a flammable liquid and ignited it. After several minutes, local police intervened, extinguished the flames, and left the scene. The statue was taken away later on. In August 2025, the NPS announced the statue would be restored.

Florida

An August 2017 meeting of the Florida League of Mayors was devoted to the topic of what to do with Civil War monuments.

• State symbols
  • Until 2016, the shield of the Confederacy was found in the Rotunda of the Florida Capitol, together with those of France, Spain, England, and the United States – all of them treated equally as "nations" that Florida was part of or governed by. The five flags "that have flown in Florida" were included on the official Senate seal, displayed prominently in the Senate chambers, on its stationery, and throughout the Capitol. On October 19, 2015, the Senate agreed to change the seal so as to remove the Confederate battle flag from it. The new (2016) Senate seal has only the flags of the United States and Florida.
• Bradenton
  • On August 22, 2017, the Manatee County Commission voted 4–3 to move the Confederate monument in front of the county courthouse to storage. This granite obelisk was dedicated on June 22, 1924, by the Judah P. Benjamin Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. It commemorates Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis, and the "Memory of Our Confederate Soldiers". On August 24, while being moved (at 3 AM), the spire toppled and broke. The clean break is repairable, but the County recommends it not be repaired until a new home is found.^: 32 No final decision has been made as of September 2018, but the Gamble Plantation Historic State Park has been suggested as a possible new home for it.
• Crestview
  • Florida's Last Confederate Veteran Memorial, City Park (1958). In 2015, ownership was transferred to trustees of Lundy's family and the memorial was moved to private property. Soon after, research determined the memorialized man had not been a veteran but had falsified his age to get veteran benefits. After the removal of the Confederate monument and flag, the park is now referred to as the "former Confederate Park".
• Daytona Beach
  • In August 2017, the Daytona Beach city manager made the decision to remove three plaques from Riverfront Park that honored Confederate veterans.
• Fort Myers
  • The bust of Robert E. Lee, on a pedestal in the median of Monroe Street downtown, was found face down on the ground on March 12, 2019; the bolts holding it in place had been removed. It did not appear to be damaged, and was removed by the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The bust had been commissioned in 1966 from Italian sculptor Aldo Pero for $6,000 by the defunct Laetitia Ashmore Nutt Chapter of UDC, chapter 1447. In 2018 there had been conflict over the future of the monument, both at a Ft. Myers City Council meeting and at the monument itself.

• Gainesville
  • Confederate monument called "Old Joe", Alachua County courthouse lawn, erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and unveiled January 20, 1904. Removed from government land and returned to the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 2017, which moved it to a private cemetery.^: 34
• Hollywood: Street signs named for Confederate Generals were removed in April 2018.
  • Forrest Street, named for CSA Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, became Freedom Street.
  • Hood Street, named for CSA Gen. John Bell Hood, became Hope Street.
  • Lee Street, named for CSA Gen. Robert E. Lee, became Liberty Street.
• Jacksonville
  • Following a petition with 160,000 signatures, Nathan Bedford Forrest High School (1959), originally an all-white school named in protest against school desegregation, renamed Westside High School in 2014 after decades of controversy.
  • In the summer of 2021, the names of six schools named for confederate figures were renamed:
    • Robert E. Lee High School was changed to Riverside High School
    • Joseph Finegan Elementary School was changed toAnchor Academy
    • Stonewall Jackson Elementary Schoolwas changed to Hidden Oaks Elementary School
    • J.E.B. Stuart Middle School was changed to Westside Middle School
    • Kirby-Smith Middle School was changed to Springfield Middle School
    • Jefferson Davis Middle School was changed to Charger Academy
  • On December 27, 2023, the Jacksonville mayor ordered the removal of the Florida's Tribute to the Women of the Confederacy monument at Springfield Park. The statue stood since 1915.
• Lakeland
  • Confederate soldier statue in downtown Munn Park, created by the McNeel Marble Works.^: 34 "The United Daughters of the Confederacy paid $1,550 to erect the statue in Munn Park, the town square, on June 3, 1910. The city chipped in $200." In May 2018, the Lakeland City Commission approved unanimously the removal of the statue to Veterans Park. However, they specified that private funds would have to cover the costs. In six months, only $26,209 was raised, so commissioners voted in November "to use $225,000 in red light camera citation money to pay for the move". A coalition of individuals and groups opposed to the move, including the Sons of Confederate Veterans, filed suit in federal court alleging that the money being used was public money, but the suit was dismissed in January 2019 "as a matter of law", and the city proceeded, noting that it will be moved in the daytime. The move started on March 21, 2019.
• Orlando
  • Confederate "Johnny Reb" monument, Lake Eola Park. Erected in 1911 on Magnolia Avenue; moved to Lake Eola Park in 1917. Removed from the park to a public cemetery in 2017.
• Palatka:
  • Putnam County Confederate Memorial (1925)^: 38 On August 25, 2020, the Putnam County Commission voted 4–1 to move the monument to a location not yet determined.
• Quincy:
  • Gadsden Confederate Memorial, Gadsden County Courthouse. Removed on June 11, 2020, 30 minutes after the Gadsden County Commission voted to do so.
• St. Augustine
  • Memorial to William Wing Loring, on the Plaza de la Constitución, erected behind the Government House (1920) On property belonging to the University of Florida, the University removed it, as Loring's descendants had requested.
• St. Petersburg
  • Marker for the Stonewall Jackson Memorial Highway erected on January 22, 1939, was removed on August 15, 2017.
• Tallahassee
  • The Confederate Battle Flag was included on the Senate seal from 1972 to 2016, when it was removed. It was also displayed in its chambers and on the Senate letterhead. In the wake of the racially motivated Charleston shootings, the Senate voted in October 2015 to replace the confederate symbol with the Florida state flag. The new shield was in place in 2016.
  • The Confederate Stainless Banner flag flew over the west entrance of the Florida State Capitol from 1978 until 2001, when Gov. Jeb Bush ordered it removed.

• Tampa
  • In 1997, county commissioners removed the Confederate flag from the Hillsborough County seal. In a compromise, they voted to hang a version of the flag in the county center. Commissioners voted in 2015 to remove that flag. In 2007, the county stopped honoring Confederate History Month.
  • In June 2017, the Hillsborough County School Board started a review of how to change the name of Robert E. Lee Elementary School in east Tampa. In September 2017, the school was seriously damaged by fire of accidental origin. Teachers and students were transferred, and the school with this name went out of existence.
  • Memoria In Aeterna ("Eternal Memory"), Old Hillsborough County Courthouse, in 2017 Annex to the current Courthouse. "The monument is comprised of two Confederate soldiers: one facing north, in a fresh uniform, upright and heading to battle, and the other facing south, his clothes tattered as he heads home humbled by war. Between them is a 32-foot-tall obelisk with the image of a Confederate flag chiseled into it." It was called "one of the most divisive symbols in Hillsborough County". It was first erected in 1911 at Franklin and Lafayette Streets, and moved to its former location, in front of the then-new county courthouse, in 1952. After voting in July 2017 to move the statue to the small Brandon Family Cemetery in the suburb that bears its name (Brandon, Florida), the County Commission announced on August 16 that the statue would only be moved if private citizens raised $140,000, the cost of moving it, within 30 days. The funds were raised within 24 hours. The following day Save Southern Heritage, Veterans' Monuments of America, and United Daughters of the Confederacy filed a lawsuit attempting to prevent the statue's move. On September 5, 2017, a Hillsborough administrative judge denied their request for an injunction. Removal of the monument, which took several days, began the same day. It was cut into 26 pieces to enable its removal. It was moved on September 5, 2017, to the Brandon Family Cemetery; the county paid half the $285,000 cost.
  • A 60 feet (18 m) x 30 feet (9.1 m) Confederate flag—when erected, the largest such flag ever made—at the privately owned Confederate Memorial Park, placed so as to be visible at the intersection of I-4 and I-75, just east of Tampa (actually Seffner, Florida), was removed on June 1, 2020, by its owner, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, after threats to burn it were made on social media.
• West Palm Beach
  • Confederate monument, Woodlawn Cemetery (1941), located at the front gate, directly behind an American flag. "The only one south of St. Augustine, likely the only Confederate statue in Palm Beach and Broward counties, said historian Janet DeVries, who leads cemetery tours at Woodlawn." Vandalized several times. Removed and placed in storage by order of Mayor Jeri Muoio on August 22, 2017, since its owner, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, had not claimed it despite notification. "Believed by local historians to be the last Confederate monument in Palm Beach County."
  • Jefferson Davis Middle School. Renamed Palm Springs Middle School in 2005.

Georgia

• State flag: From 1956 to 2001 the state flag of Georgia incorporated the Confederate battle flag. The current (2003) flag incorporates a less familiar version of the Confederacy's first flag, the Stars and Bars.
• Confederate Memorial Day and Robert E. Lee Day: Georgia removed the Confederate references in 2015; they are now known as "State Holidays".
• Athens
  • A portrait of Robert E. Lee was removed from a building on the campus of the University of Georgia by the Demosthenian Literary Society.
  • A monument was removed from Broad Street in downtown Athens in August 2020, ostensibly due to roadwork. The monument was moved to a nearby battle site.
• Atlanta: Confederate Ave was renamed United Ave after the neighborhood organized for a change in 2019.
• Brunswick: A monument that was placed in 1902 was removed on May 17, 2022, and although the City Commission voted to remove it in 2020 the final action was delayed due to legal tension.
• Decatur: The DeKalb County Confederate Monument was removed on June 18, 2020, after a court order on June 12.
• Lawrenceville: A Confederate memorial outside the Gwinnett County Courthouse was removed to storage in February 2021.
• Macon: Two Confederate monuments, the Confederate statue on Cotton Avenue (originally erected in the 1870s and originally stood on Mulberry Street prior to the 1950s) and the 'Women of the South' monument on Poplar and First Street (built by the United Daughters of the Confederacy at an unknown date), were moved to Whittle Park outside Rose Hill Cemetery on June 22, 2022, after a 2020 vote by the Macon-Bibb Commission and a lawsuit against removal had ended.
• Sylvania: The Screven County Confederate Dead Monument was pulled off its pedestal and "virtually destroyed" between August 30 and 31, 2018. The monument had been erected on Confederate Memorial Day, April 26, 1909, and moved to the city cemetery in the 1950s when the city turned the downtown Main Street park – where the monument was originally located – into a parking lot. The Georgia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans is offering a $2,000 reward for the arrest and conviction of those involved; the reward was subsequently increased to $10,000. A photo of the destroyed monument shows a flagpole with a Confederate flag.

Indiana

• Indianapolis: On June 8, 2020, following the protests in response to the murder of George Floyd, the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument was removed from Garfield Park and dismantled. It originally marked a mass grave for Confederate soldiers who died at Camp Morton, but was moved away from the grave in 1912.

Kansas

• Wichita: Confederate Flag Bicentennial Memorial (1962, removed 2015). The Confederate battle flag had been displayed at the John S. Stevens Pavilion at Veterans Memorial Plaza near downtown since 1976, when it was placed there in a historical flag display as part of the nation's bicentennial. The flag was removed July 2, 2015, by order of Mayor Jeff Longwell.

Kentucky

• Bowling Green: a "historic" sign indicating that Bowling Green was the Confederate capital of Kentucky was removed in August 2020.
• Florence: Boone County High School. The mascot for the school was Mr. Rebel, a Confederate general who stands tall in a light blue uniform, feathered cap, and English mustache. It was removed in 2017.
• Frankfort: Statue of Jefferson Davis, Kentucky Capitol Rotunda, 1936. (Jefferson Davis was born in Kentucky.) In 2015, the all-white state Historic Properties Advisory Commission voted against removing the statue. In 2017 several prominent Republicans called for its removal. It was removed on June 13, 2020.

• Lexington
  • John C. Breckinridge Memorial (1911) and John Hunt Morgan Memorial (1887), Fayette County Courthouse. In November 2015, a committee, the Urban County Arts Review Board, voted to recommend removal of both memorials. The city council approved the removal on August 17, 2017. They were removed October 17, 2017, with the plan to move both to Lexington Cemetery. On July 24, 2018, this was accomplished.
• Louisville
  • The Confederate Monument in Louisville statue was dedicated in 1895 and was placed next to the University of Louisville on city property. It was moved to a riverfront park in Brandenburg, Kentucky, in December 2016. The cost of the move was $600,000.
  • John B. Castleman Monument, Cherokee Triangle, 1882. In June 2020, the statue was removed to be moved to Castleman's burial site in Cave Hill Cemetery.

Louisiana