Mississippi Lawmakers Working to Remove Confederate Statues From Washington

Lawmakers in both chambers of the Mississippi Legislature are working to rid of two Confederate statues that have represented the state in Congress for nearly a century, often offering Washington, D.C. tourists a gloomy perspective on the state’s progress in civil rights.

During the opening week of the session, Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives and the Senate introduced bills that would either outright replace the statues of segregationists Jefferson Davis and James Z. George inside the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall or create a commission to offer a pair of alternatives “who bring honor to all Mississippians and reflect the demographics of the state as a whole.”

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Drawing from the categories of art, literature, music, and history brings so many possibilities as to who could be chosen to have a monument erected in their likeness inside the nation’s capitol building. {snip}

And not to forget about civil rights icons – Mississippi has had a lot of impact there, too, with those like Medgar Evers, Fannie Lou Hamer, Vernon Dahmner, and many others serving pivotal roles in ensuring the same rights were granted and discrimination was lifted and continues to be lifted against African Americans. This is the point in the statue conversation that House Minority Leader Robert Johnson III is trying to capitalize on with his latest bill.

Instead of creating a commission to submit recommendations for new statues, Johnson has once again proposed the state go ahead and replace Davis and George with statues of Hamer and Hiram Revels, the first African American to serve in Congress when being elected out of Mississippi in 1870. {snip}

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