Birmingham covers up Confederate monument

[DonViejo]

Source: Associated Press




By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Aug 16, 2017, 8:23 AM ET


Birmingham city workers use plywood panels to cover the Confederate Monument in Linn Park, in Birmingham, Ala., Tuesday night, Aug. 15, 2017, on orders from Mayor William Bell. (Joe Songer /AL.com via AP)

Alabama's largest city has used a wooden structure to cover up a Confederate monument in a downtown park.

Legislators passed a law earlier this year prohibiting the removal of structures including rebel memorials. So Birmingham Mayor William Bell ordered the city's 52-foot-tall Confederate obelisk covered with wooden panels.

The box-like structure covers a panel that says the memorial to Confederate soldiers and sailors was dedicated in 1905 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. City workers began installing the structure Tuesday night, just days after deadly violence over a Confederate monument in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The Birmingham mayor's office says it's looking at ways to challenge the state law restricting the city's authority to remove the memorial.

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Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/birmingham-covers-confederate-monument-49247435

[pangaia]

1. "United Daughters of the Confederacy."

yeah, that's a super duper group..

[ToxMarz]

2. Would be interesting to know the White Supremacists behind that organization

No women at that time would have been able to do anything without being entirely supported (financially and ideologically) by the establishment men.

[murielm99]

3. This is a great story.

Thank you.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. Huge step for Birmingham.

It will be easier to take the next step now. Hopefully Georgia and Mississippi will bring themselves into the changing world, too.

[rurallib]

5. !

Maybe they could cover it with cement from a helicopter while it has the wood encasement.

[htuttle]

7. Had the exact same thought

[Honeycombe8]

6. Someone's just going to take the wooden structure down. Altho that would be a crime. nt

[raven mad]

8. Good for them. I was there when Richard Arrington was running, helped with the campaign.

And voted for the first black mayor of Birmingham. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Arrington_Jr. We had a heck of a celebration in my little neck of the woods when he won.

I've been gone from there for a while - but if anyone goes, downtown honors the Civil Rights movement. There is a museum which has an exact replica of Martin Luther King's cell while he was held there. A little further from downtown you can visit the 16th Street Baptist Church, where some asshole killed some beautiful girls - because they were black. It's now on the Historical Register.

Birmingham, Jefferson County, Shelby County, etc. are not bad folks! Try the Botanical Gardens, go up top Red Mountain (I worked up there at the NBC station), see the Vulcan, and oh, my, the food everywhere............... sigh......... Then, go to Tannehill.

My daughter, at age 10, wrote an essay about the Children's March in 1963 and wound up winning an award from her school district. My mom did a march in 1963, so I've paid tribute at the Pettus Bridge, helping with a fundraiser years later.

We're white. At least, as far as I know - never did the DNA thing, don't care.

[riversedge]

9. Reminds me of WI--where the Gov/state passed laws over local control of their schools, the environ-

ment, and other issues. Of course it is a Repug gov--Walker