Momentum to Remove Confederate Symbols Slows
By ALAN BLINDER
MARCH 13, 2016
... This year, legislators in at least 12 states have considered measures about how the Confederacy should be recognized. In some of those states, lawmakers sought to curb reminders of Confederate history, but there have also been bills, like proposals that advanced in Alabama and Tennessee, to offer new safeguards for controversial monuments and memorials ...
“I don’t think it was a false momentum,” said State Representative Justin T. Bamberg of South Carolina, a Democrat. “You had an awakening of society in 2015, but an awakening in and of itself doesn’t mean action” ...
... there is sharp division in Louisiana, where New Orleans officials decided to remove four Confederate monuments and spurred an uproar that led to legal challenges and a bill in the Legislature. (In Mississippi, one lawmaker cited the Legislature’s interest in “material that promotes the historical integrity of Mississippi and its most revered Confederate icons” and filed a resolution urging New Orleans to transfer the statues to Beauvoir.)
What will happen in Alabama is uncertain. Despite bipartisan concerns about Mr. Allen’s bill seizing local power, the Senate easily approved the proposal. But lawmakers and lobbyists said the measure appeared to be in jeopardy in the House ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/14/us/momentum-to-remove-confederate-symbols-slows-or-stops.html
