In the South, Confederate monuments often protected, hard to remove thanks to state laws

A Confederate monument in downtown Franklin, Tenn.

Calls to remove Confederate monuments have reached a cacophony across the country after the violence in Charlottesville, Va.

But actions like those in Baltimore, where statues were quietly removed under the shroud of night this week, remains much harder elsewhere in the South.

Multiple states below the Mason-Dixon Line have put into place formal legal mechanisms that prevent historical monuments on public property from being taken down or altered without great difficulty.

More:Why removing Confederate monuments in Tennessee is not an easy process

More:County by county: Confederate memorials in Tennessee

In South Carolina, for instance, a two-thirds vote in the legislature is required to remove a monument. In Tennessee, a state historical commission has oversight over many of the monuments. Cities in their own right do not have the authority to remove them.

Proponents see the Confederate statues as representations of history, part of the culture of the past.

But opponents see them as divisive, a celebratory representation of a war defending slavery, and a lasting symbol of white supremacy.

Workers remove the Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson monument in Wyman Park early Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2017, in Baltimore.

"These laws are the Old South imposing its moral and its political views on us forever more," said Stan Deaton, senior historian at the Georgia Historical Society. "This is what led to the Civil War, and it still divides us as a country. We have competing visions not only about the future but about the past."

The monuments and memorials, found throughout the South, are again at the forefront of public debate after white supremacists, neo-Nazis and other groups protested the planned removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville.

Those protests turned violent, and left one woman dead and more than a dozen others injured after a 20-year-old Ohio man, according to authorities, rammed his car into a group of counterprotesters.

There are more than 700 Confederate statues and monuments on public property across the nation, and the majority of those are in Southern states, according to a 2016 Southern Poverty Law Center study. This week, the SPLC encouraged the public to advocate for the removal of Confederate monuments in their communities.

► More:Confederate monuments, more than 700 across USA, aren't budging

Virginia, Georgia and North Carolina have the most, the study found.

In Georgia, a rapidly-spreading petition calls for the removal of the Lost Cause Confederate Memorial found in Decatur's downtown square.

"There is no place for hate in Decatur," the petition states. "After the horrendous display of racism, bigotry, and white supremacy in Charlottesville, we, the citizens of Decatur and DeKalb County, want to take a stand against white nationalism by removing one of its symbols." 

But Georgia law protects memorials and monuments that honor military service from being removed, relocated or altered. Those include "the United States of America or the several states thereof, or the Confederate States of America." 

The statute came as a compromise between lawmakers when Georgia redesigned its state flag in 2001, eventually removing the Confederate battle symbol.

Debate intensified after South Carolina shooting

Elsewhere in the South, no known protests or rallies have been scheduled at any of the major Confederate monuments in the state of Mississippi, which has the only flag in the nation that still carries the Confederate emblem on it.

In 2004, Mississippi passed a law that prohibits the removal or alteration of statues or memorials honoring the military, including those dealing with the Civil War. It also prohibits the renaming of streets, schools or government buildings likewise named for Civil War or other military figures or events.

More: Robert E. Lee's family 'fine' with removing Confederate statues

► More:Retired federal judge donated to hate group tied to Charlottesville protests

Several cities and the state’s largest universities have taken down the state flag. Efforts to penalize government entities that don't fly the flag on public property failed last year. 

In South Carolina, Confederate monuments are similarly protected by the state's Heritage Act, which passed when the Confederate flag was moved in 2000 from the statehouse dome to a nearby Confederate memorial. The act requires a two-thirds vote by both chambers of the state legislature to remove or alter a monument. 

Lawmakers met the two-thirds majority threshold in 2015 when they voted overwhelmingly to remove the Confederate flag from the Statehouse grounds.

Their decision came after self-professed white supremacist Dylann Roof fatally shot nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. Roof had posed for a photo with the Confederate flag. 

In the aftermath of the Charleston shooting, calls for the removal of Confederate symbols from public places were renewed. 

In Tennessee and elsewhere, strict rules in place

The removal of a bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and early leader of the Ku Klux Klan, from the Tennessee state Capitol became a rallying point in Tennessee. Those calls were renewed this week following the Charlottesville violence. 

But the Tennessee General Assembly made it more difficult to remove historic monuments from any public property last year with the passage of the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act. 

► More:In wake of Charlottesville, protests take aim at Nathan Bedford Forrest bust in Tennessee Capitol

► More:Tennessee GOP gubernatorial candidates stop short of calling for removal of Nathan Bedford Forrest bust

The law requires a two-thirds vote by the state historical commission. Prior to the passage of the act, only a simple majority was required. (An act of the General Assembly can remove a monument, too.)

Tennessee state Rep. Steve McDaniel, R-Parkers Crossroads, sponsored the legislation and thinks the state is fortunate to have a clear and public process. 

"It shouldn’t be where you can go in overnight and remove something without the public input," McDaniel said. 

In May, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a measure creating a new commission that makes it more difficult for the state and cities to remove or rename monuments.

► More:Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signs bill preventing removal of historic monuments

The measure requires the Committee on Alabama Monument Preservation to approve changes to monuments and buildings that are 20 to 40 years old. Schools that are 20 years or older may apply to the commission to be renamed.

A government entity that renamed, altered or removed a monument or historic building without prior approval from the committee would be fined $25,000 for each violation.

But there are some Southern cities that have pushed back.

New Orleans served as the epicenter of Confederate monument removal in Louisiana. After a lengthy process, the city government took down several statues — including one of Lee, the Confederate general.

A statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee is removed Friday, May 19, 2017, from Lee Circle in New Orleans. The city council voted to remove the monument and three other Confederate and white supremacist monuments in December 2015.

Elsewhere in the state, the issue appears to be less volatile. Monuments remained in place in other Louisiana towns, like Lafayette and Shreveport, despite local efforts to remove them. Things are quiet in Madison Parish, too. 

► More:New Orleans removes Gen. Robert E. Lee statue, its last Confederate-era monument

"I haven’t heard a word,” Madison Parish Police Jury President Robert Fortenberry said, adding that if news outlets stayed away from Tallulah, the parish seat, "I think we would be fine."

Greenville News, Geoff Pender of the Clarion-Ledger, Montgomery Advertiser, Ken Stickney and Claire Taylor of The Daily Advertiser contributed to this report. 

Reach Jessica Bliss at 615-259-8253 and jbliss@tennessean.com.
Reach Holly Meyer at hmeyer@tennessean.com or 615-259-8241 and on Twitter @HollyAMeyer.