After debates between township and city officials in a community near Cincinnati over which jurisdiction actually owned a Confederate monument for Robert E. Lee, city officials in Franklin, Ohio have decided to remove the monument.
“Recently, a monument ‘erected and dedicated by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and Friends’ marking the Dixie Highway has become the subject of a great deal of attention for our small community,” a Franklin city official said in a statement, referencing the recent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia that turned deadly. White nationalists and members of the alt-right showed up to protest the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue.
As one of four Confederate monuments in Ohio, the Robert E. Lee memorial was donated to the community by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and Friends in 1927 and is located near the city’s Right of Way for the Dixie Highway, Cincinnati.com reported.
While the memorial is the property of the township, the city has the right to move it if it causes a public safety hazard, which officials said they would do.
“Our crews will remove the monument and return their property to (the township’s) selected location forthwith,” the city said.
The Franklin Township relinquished its right to the memorial over to the city, but said it was important to remember the “history of our beloved country.”
“Whether events of the past may have been celebratory or unpleasant, it is important that we remember the culmination of all such events is what has transpired and shaped this great nation, including Franklin Township,” the township administrator Traci Stivers said in a statement.
The decision to remove the memorial — no new location had been determined as of Wednesday, Cincinnati.com reported — comes just as the President tweeted that it is sad to see the history and culture of our country being ripped apart.”
Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments. You…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017
…can't change history, but you can learn from it. Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson – who's next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish! Also…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017
…the beauty that is being taken out of our cities, towns and parks will be greatly missed and never able to be comparably replaced!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017
Keep crying over the statues glorifying traitors who killed Americans in defense of slavery Trump.
The more you do that, the faster they will be taken down.
So…that was a really successful rally to save the South’s “heritage,” wasn’t it? How many monuments gone now? Those guys really understand political activism, don’t they…
Rust Belt Confederate statues are entirely the product of the KKK’s revival in the 1910s/1920s. Chuck 'em all in the scrap heap.
Fine with me…now she needs to be asked how did the Civil War start again?
and though his thoughts (knock on wood) about this subject had more to do with the SC church shooting, this is a statement that ‘proto candidate’ Trump made about the Confederate battle flag.
link
Anyway we can turn this into a “two-fer” and remove the President? (Pence won’t be long to follow.)