COLLIERVILLE, Tennessee — There appears to be no appetite at all among government leaders in Collierville for removing a Confederate monument that some view as offensive and others see as historic. Every so often, opponents complain about the marker in the publicly-owned town square.
A group known as Collierville Community Justice has been calling for the monument’s removal for years, but the pleas have fallen on deaf ears at the Collierville board of mayor and aldermen. The group recently renewed its call, with one organizer telling Local 24 News the marker represents a slap in the face and a distorted history of the Civil War and slavery.
And yet, the monument still stands in the town square where it has been since the 1940s. It was put there by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to commemorate civil war battles in Collierville in 1863. The granite marker identifies the site as Confederate Park, but town leaders took care of that in 2017 by officially naming it Town Square Park. But that’s as far as they are willing to go. Collierville Mayor Stan Joyner seems dead set against moving the marker despite other cities – large and small – taking down confederate symbols from public spaces in the past year as part of a reckoning with race. Most Collierville residents appear to side with the mayor, which means despite the protests from time to time, this marker isn’t moving.
And that’s my point of view. I’m Otis Sanford, for Local 24 News.