Tag Archives: History

The Confederate Statue Compromise of Dalton, Ga.

by Donald Smith

There are good ways and bad ways to handle controversial statues and memorials. These excerpts from a press release demonstrate one of the good ways. The press release describes how Dalton, Georgia, relocated a statue of a Confederate general, and did it in a way that fostered cooperation within the community. (All emphasis is added).

On July 8, 2020, following 30 days of several marches and demonstrations, a town hall meeting in which a number of persons spoke to the Council of Dalton about the removal of the Joseph E. Johnston Statue from public property, a Facebook petition to move the statue and another Facebook petition to not move the statue, the City of Dalton notified the local Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (hereinafter “UDC”) that the UDC needed to make arrangements to move the statue as any permissive easement to allow its continued placement on the public right of way of the intersection of Crawford and Hamilton Streets were no longer permitted. The City of Dalton gave the UDC a reasonable time period within which to arrange to move the statue.

The UDC expressed last summer that it was ready and willing to move the statue provided that a suitable location could be found AND provided that funds sufficient to safely handle the move could be secured as the UDC did not have any money to be able to do so. … Members of the community at large including some of the original marchers volunteered to raise funds to pay for the move.

The Community Foundation of Northwest Georgia which took no position on the subject of whether to move the statue or not to move it, offered to serve as a conduit, or bank, to facilitate the anonymous donations required for the move.… Continue reading