Defying law, Charleston to remove statue of slavery advocate
COLUMBIA, S.C. • Defying state law, officials in the historic city of Charleston, S.C., announced Wednesday that they plan to remove a statue of slavery advocate John C. Calhoun from a downtown square.
Mayor John Tecklenburg announced he will send a resolution to the City Council to remove the statue at a news conference on the fifth anniversary of the slaying of eight black church members and their pastor in Dylann Roof’s racist attack at a downtown Charleston church. The move comes as monuments to Confederates and other historical figures who repressed or oppressed other people are being removed across the country.
“What a beautiful show of support from our City Council,” Tecklenburg said, adding that he was happy to see so many come together in the effort “not to erase our long and often tragic history but to begin to write a new and more equitable future.” The mayor anticipated the statue will go to a local museum or educational institution.
The next meeting of the Charleston City Council is scheduled for Tuesday.
After the Roof massacre, officials came together to remove the Confederate flag from its site on the Statehouse lawn. On Tuesday, the pastor of Mother Emanuel stood with civil rights activists and politicians who called for the removal of the Calhoun statue, a 100-foot-tall monument that presides over Francis Marion Square in the heart of the city.
Calhoun’s support of slavery never wavered. And in an 1836 speech before the U.S. Senate, he said slaves in the South were better off than free blacks in the North.
(not using) FILE — In this June 18, 2015, file photo, a group of women pray at a makeshift memorial on the sidewalk in front of the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. One big change happened in conservative South Carolina after a racist gunman killed nine black people during a Bible study five years ago, the Confederate flag came down. But since then, hundreds of other monuments and buildings named for Civil War figures, virulent racists and even a gynecologist who did painful, disfiguring medical experiments on African American women remain. (AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton, File)