Florida city votes money to move Confederate soldier statue

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press


Updated 12:03 pm CST, Sunday, November 4, 2018

LAKELAND, Fla. (AP) — A Confederate soldier monument will be moving from a Florida city's downtown park now that money has been found to pay for it.

The Lakeland Ledger reports that the city commission voted to use $225,000 from red light camera violations to move the monument from Munn Park in Lakeland's downtown to a local park dedicated to veterans. The move is expected to be completed by Jan. 31.

The commission voted in May to move the statue to the veterans park but provided no taxpayer money to pay for it. Private donations fell well short of the amount needed.

The statue, like many others across the South, depicts a generic Confederate soldier atop a pediment. Some commissioners said the veterans' park is a more appropriate site for the monument.

Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Florida-city-votes-money-to-move-Confederate-13361851.php

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(Short article, no more at link.)




Florida Memory - Members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy,
seated around a Confederate monument in Munn Park - Lakeland, Florida









Baaaaaaa, y'all.

[asiliveandbreathe]

1. Monument removal or being moved has caught on - I was just thinking - in another state

Virginia...city name Lynchburg..I would hope someone starts a petition to change the name of that city..or is that asking too much.....

[Jedi Guy]

5. You do realize the name has nothing to do with lynching, right?

The city was founded by a man named John Lynch in 1757. Should everyone with that surname change it?

Edited to add: Also, John Lynch freed his slaves within his lifetime and was a supporter of abolition. So yeah, I'm fine with the city he founded continuing to bear his name.

[Kind of Blue]

6. Sorry, the name has EVERYTHING to do with the term lynching.

While John Lynch did free enslaved people during his lifetime, though the captives were returned to slavery after his death, and as compelling as that story is, the most important story to me is we cannot escape the fact that the term is directly linked to his brother Charles Lynch, Jr., a great "patriot," who started this specific practice of extra-judicial authority and the originator of the term lynching/Lynch Law. Google him if you care to know more.

Dig a little deeper, connect the dots for why any fallacy or truths linger to help stop regressive whitewashing. "We're" liberated from the King of England but continue the practice of slavery long after the British gave it up. "Defeat" the Confederacy but enact Jim Crowe till this day. "Defeat" the Nazis and veer to McCarthyism. "Defeat" the Russians in the Cold War but now we have a government that is basically Checkist, clearly fascists-mother loving Russia as the last hope of white supremacy. And here, you dismiss the valid point of even name change by promoting the cool Lynch brother over his cruel Lynch sibling who started this, for lack of a better word right now because I'm too angry and overwrought, Bullshit.

As in my indigenous African proverb says, and I agree with Giuliani's assessment about truths from a while ago, "There are no truths. Just stories," which story do you adhere to in this struggle to remove ideology that took a war to defeat but still is beyond a doubt the prevailing "truth?"

The term of Lynch Law
https://www.jstor.org/stable/432538?seq=6#metadata_info_tab_contents

https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1101&context=masters-theses

https://books.google.com/books?id=pFnQkFhi6FIC&pg=PA22&lpg=PA22&dq=charles+lynch,+1775+saltpeter,+slaves+and+Indians&source=bl&ots=Spn-USLsEH&sig=01xzn3e34LHW9svHooCO-FoOsFs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiG9N-1n7zeAhUniVQKHaQWCacQ6AEwDXoECAMQAQ#v=onepage&q=charles%20lynch%2C%201775%20saltpeter%2C%20slaves%20and%20Indians&f=false

[Judi Lynn]

8. Thank you. So glad to read your comments.

It is sad when so much energy is used to bury the truth.

We need as much illumination as possible.

[Kind of Blue]

9. I know, Judi Lynn. And it takes little energy to uncover it.

Thank you for being an incredible purveyor of so much information on a wide range of topics. Love your posts!

[Jedi Guy]

10. The point I'm making is that they didn't name it after lynching.

The city is named after a man who ultimately did the right thing rather than perpetuate a great evil. That his freed slaves were returned to bondage after his death is no indictment on him. Nor are his brother's horrific actions, for that matter.

And again, should everyone with that surname have to change it?

[Kind of Blue]

12. We know that the town was not named after lynching. But it's incorrect to say

that Lynchburg has nothing to do with the practice of lynching. You left out half the story that explains how the word came to be. Another confusion is that lynching did not begin as racial violence. Charles was known to be a zealot patriot and would lynch, severely beat, Tories, enslaved people and whites alike who he felt sided with Tories. There is no record, not to say it didn't happen, that anyone was executed by a beat down then known as lynching. He really couldn't execute anyone because his county was a hotbed of colonial loyalists.

Historic records show that Charles Lynch was even the first to use the verb to lynch and there was a challenge from his relative William Lynch, I think of Illinois, vying for but denied credit for coining the word because of his vigilante forays during the Revolutionary War.

Looking further back in Ireland where the family came from, there is legend that a 15th century ancestor was the first to take up the illegal practice, that some scholars say Charles probably heard. So there was no doubt of the all around association of to lynch with the Lynch family.

There are things not in question. No one indicted John Lynch and I made clear where the confusion lies. You changed the poster's suggestion of reconsidering the name of the town to whether Everyone should change their surname. What? I'll rather stay on point and not muddy the OP's news of bringing down Confederate monuments. But I felt the poster made a good point of changing the name of a town that is synonymous with cruel and unusual punishment. And had to address your claim that lynching, as it was practiced then, had nothing to do with Lynchburg, where it started, is false.

[Jedi Guy]

15. The other issue is the dates.

The town was founded in 1757. If old Charles began the practice of lynching during or around the Revolutionary War, then I'm not sure how you can claim a nefarious connection when the former predates the latter by a few decades.

That being the case, I really can't say I understand the drive to change the name. It's not as if they advertise themselves as the birthplace of lynching. A guy founded a city. His racist asshole murderer of a brother brought about lynching years later. That's literally the only connection. Demanding that the city be renamed is unreasonable, given those facts. That's my opinion.

[Kind of Blue]

16. Please do your own research to answer your historical questions.

I've done enough.

Why do you mis-characterize what people say? I did not say John's brother was a racist murderous asshole. In fact, my response was clear that he was an equal opportunity flogger and no one can find any record of executions in Lynchburg where he held his "trials." No one that I know of is demanding the name change. It is a suggestion on this thread that I agree with and stated my reason why. I have no quarrel with your opinion on that matter.

[Jedi Guy]

18. And I think asking a city to change its name over this is silly.

If they were celebrating what Lynch's behavior led to, that'd be one thing. That's not the case.

Also, I'm at work and only able to research these things in short bursts while I'm on break, so my apologies if you felt that I was mischaracterizing what you'd said. That error was entirely mine based on a very, very fast glance through Charles Lynch's history. I guess I made the connection that he must've done such awful things for the objection to be raised in these latter days. In any case, my intent wasn't to twist your words, and I apologize.

[Kind of Blue]

19. Apology accepted, Jedi Guy. I did not expect that at all.

That's the beauty of studying history from even a few sources that makes painful things at least clear and prevents us from jumping to conclusions or making shit up because it feels better.

The only time I went thru Lynchburg, My dad had to pull over so I could throw up because the name turned my stomach. There's a moving account of an AA man who is a great grand of Charles Lynch who visits the plantation-museum and finds spiritual healing through the strongly felt presence of his African ancestors. So knowing his history, the Lynch history, puts things in perspective for me. But if I lived in Virginia and there was a demand for name change, I'd fight for it. https://www.wric.com/news/the-term-lynching-has-a-hidden-history-that-may-surprise-you_20180320023816347/1059906752

[Jedi Guy]

20. Sorry, didn't expect what? Not sure I understand what you mean.

Anyway, insofar as moving Confederate monuments is concerned, I think that's just fine. As far as renaming Lynchburg, I think that's going a little far, for the reasons stated. Again, just my opinion. I'm not a fan of renaming things because Historical Figure A did/said things that we, with our modern sensibilities, find reprehensible, either. People are, to a large extent, a product of their era, barring the odd visionaries.

[Kind of Blue]

21. Okay n/t

[LanternWaste]

14. Who specifically (other than yourself) is arguing that irrelevancy?

"And again, should everyone with that surname have to change it?"

Logic will always be a good course to take.. even if you're past your college years.

[Jedi Guy]

17. I was wondering when you'd drop by.

Good to see some things never change.

[paleotn]

2. Monuments to traitors.

Only in America, I suppose.

[joshcryer]

7. Yep, in for "unity" we treated the treasonous bastards very softly.

We didn't really have the resources to jail and try all of them so they were given blanket immunity.

Under the guise of free speech as their civil war heroes died they were given statutes and memorials.

[GulfCoast66]

3. Folks, this is progress. I am shocked.

Lakeland is not Miami or even Tampa.

The County council would never have supported this in my opinion. Polk County is bright red. The home of Sheriff Grady Judd.

[peekaloo]

11. Now that the city commission's most ardent supporter of the statue staying in place

is out on bond for 2nd degree murder, and no longer on the commission, it leaves room for more rational decisions.

They've been floating a marijuana decriminalization within city limits, too, but not quite there yet.

Good ol' boys still in power but the demographics are changing.

Oh yeah, boof Grady Judd.

[Demonaut]

4. nice to think that a few racists will have paid for the removal, I would've ran that light (safely)

just to move it

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

13. Anyone ever recall that M*A*S*H episode where Hakweye builds a monument?

Names of every soldier who passed through the 4077 written on tongue depressors and glued together.

And when he found out the Star and Stripe newspaper wanted to glorify it, he had the whole thing wrapped in primer cord.

That's how I'd 'move' this statue. In little pieces.