Headlines
Ole Miss ASB Votes Unanimously to Relocate Confederate Statue
By Talbert Toole
Lifestyles Editor
talbert.toole@hottytoddy.com
Confederate Memorial Statue located in the Circle of the Ole Miss campus. Photo by Brantley Meaders.
Ole Miss’ Associated Student Body voted unanimously Tuesday, March 5 to relocate the Confederate statue at the edge of the Circle to the Confederate cemetery. The cemetery, where experts estimate between 400-700 Confederate and Union soldiers are buried, lies south of the Tad Smith Coliseum.
ASB is a student organization committed to supporting every student to be prepared for the next season of life by engaging student opinion about the nature of university and campus and elevating the student voice to campus leadership, the organization’s website states. It is made up of 47 university students.
However, the question of who has the authority to authorize the statue’s relocation is still up in the air.
The resolution includes the 2013 Mississippi Code 55-15-81 stipulating the “governing body” may move the memorial to an appropriate alternative location.
In a forum hosted Feb. 26 by UM Provost Noel Wilkin, a question was raised whether governing bodies on campus actually have the power to remove the statue.
“It’s clear to me that the Provost does not have the authority to move that statue,” Wilkin said. “It’s not clear to me based on my interpretations of the policies who the governing board is. For me, that’s where that process begins.”
Wilkin said the administration is working “to ensure we understand how to get clarity” on that governing body.
Prior to the unanimous vote, the decision to relocate the statue originated in ASB’s committee for inclusion and cross-cultural engagement last week; once it was passed, it moved onto the Rules Committee which approved the resolution.
Now that it has passed the Senate floor, the resolution will be in Vice President Walker Abel’s hands. If approved, it will continue up the chain of command to ASB President Elam Miller. Miller has the ability to either continue the approval or veto the resolution altogether.
From there, Dean of Students Melissa Sutton Noss and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Brandi Hephner LaBanc must both give their approval before it is delivered to Interm Chancellor Larry Sparks.
The decision to create a resolution relocating the statue came after last month’s several rallies from both statue protestors and counter-protestors.
Two Confederate groups—Confederate 901 and The Hiwaymen—organized a “Mississippi Stands” rally in Oxford Saturday, Feb. 23.
The Mississippi Stands rally was in protest of the administration’s decision to remove several other of the school’s longstanding elements, such as the Confederate battle flag at football games, Colonel Reb and the song “Dixie” performed by the Ole Miss Band.
The Confederate rally was met with student and community-led counter-protestors who also participated in rallies on campus prior to the Confederate rally.
A Students Against Social Injustice (SASI) demonstration and a Black History Month March took place two days prior to the Confederate rally with the same message—to take down or remove the statue from its current location.
During the Black History Month March, Jarrius Adams, president of the University of Mississippi Gospel Choir, delivered a speech that addressed several talking points: black leadership, the fight against institutional racism and the Confederate statue.
“This statue is not just stone and metal,” Adams said. “It is not just an innocent remembrance of a benign history. This statue celebrates a fictional, sanitized Confederacy.”
| Sat, Aug 31 |  | vs Furman | W, 76-0 |
| Sat, Sep 7 |  | vs Middle Tennessee | W, 52-3 |
| Sat, Sep 14 |  | @ Wake Forest | W, 40-6 |
| Sat, Sep 21 |  | vs Georgia Southern | W, 52-13 |
| Sat, Sep 28 |  | vs Kentucky | L, 20-17 |
| Sat, Oct 5 |  | @ South Carolina | W, 27-3 |
| Sat, Oct 12 |  | vs LSU | L, 29-26 (2 OT) |
| Sat, Oct 26 |  | vs Oklahoma | W, 26-14 |
| Sat, Nov 2 |  | @ Arkansas | W, 63-35 |
| Sat, Nov 16 |  | vs Georgia | W, 28-10 |
| Sat, Nov 23 |  | @ Florida | 11:00 AM ABC or ESPN |
| Sat, Nov 30 |  | vs Mississippi State | 2:30 PM ESPN or ABC |
Holice
March 6, 2019 at 2:02 pm
In the Ole Miss class of 1860-61 there were 228 students, all of these young men joined various Confederate Units in 1861, the University closed and the War began. Four years later by late Spring of 1865, 27% of these young men were dead. Most of their bodies were not returned to their families, they were buried in Trenches or shallow graves, or sometimes not buried at all. The ladies of Oxford (who had nursed boys at the University field hospitals) worked hard after the war, raising money any way they could to pay for the monument now on campus. They sold pies and cakes, held shows and plays, charged for admission, finally they raised the money to pay for the monument that is located in the Circle. Would the students of today really deny this monuments to Ole Miss students of that generation! I believe if we lost any thing closed to those numbers killed, there would be many monuments raised to modern students memory. It is truly sad that young people that have lots of opportunities today, would take away from that generation, a simple monument to their bravery. These are Ole Miss and Lafayette County boys who lost their lives in a war to defend Mississippi from outside aggressors. This is indeed a sad day for Oxford and Ole Miss.
olemissisadisgrace
March 6, 2019 at 3:26 pm
The University has become a disgrace and the Town of Oxford is not far behind. Allowing the removal of history, which is there to remind us of our strides of what we have accomplished, and what we have learned and to grow into such a great country. This will only cause further divide. Yet, the funniest part is it is the students that come from near and far that are making decision about the history of the university. They could not tell you the years that the civil war were fought, or which states were in the north and the South fighting. These students will be gone in a few years and have never remembered what Ole Miss is or was. They will be in other states. It’s a sad, sad day for our community. Our country is filling up with entitlement children and pacifist which will only lead to the destruction of America.
Ann Phillips
March 6, 2019 at 3:41 pm
All of this is a disgrace to Oxford and Ole Miss! Why do they talk about white people only, I think they ought to take down anything that has to do with Martin Luther King! All the history of him ought to be thrown out too, if they are going to take all of ours away! I love everybody the yellow, black, white, red, blue, brown whatever color! They are all precious in God’s eyes! They all need to stop and try to got Ole Miss back! It is just a sad time in the life of Oxford Mississippi!
Paramahamsa Bobananda
March 6, 2019 at 4:37 pm
2013 Mississippi Code
Title 55 – PARKS AND RECREATION
Chapter 15 – COMMEMORATIVE PARKS AND MONUMENTS
ALTERATION OF HISTORICAL MONUMENTS AND MEMORIALS
§ 55-15-81 – Alteration of historical monuments and memorials prohibited; sanctions
Universal Citation: MS Code § 55-15-81 (2013)
(1) None of the following items, structures or areas may be relocated, removed, disturbed, altered, renamed or rededicated: Any Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Mexican-American War, War Between the States, Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Persian Gulf War, War in Iraq or Native American Wars statues, monuments, memorials or nameplates (plaques), which have been erected on public property of the state or any of its political subdivisions, such as local, municipal or county owned public areas, and any statues, monuments, memorials, nameplates (plaques), schools, streets, bridges, buildings, parks preserves, reserves or other public items, structure or areas of the state or any of its political subdivisions, such as, local, municipal or county owned public areas, which have been dedicated in memory of, or named for, any historical military figure, historical military event, military organization or military unit.
(2) No person may prevent the public body responsible for maintaining any of the items, structures or areas described above from taking proper measures and exercising proper means for the protection, preservation, care, repair or restoration of those items, structures or areas. The governing body may move the memorial to a more suitable location if it is determined that the location is more appropriate to displaying the monument.
(3) This section shall not apply to items, structures or areas located on property owned or acquired by the Mississippi Transportation Commission which may interfere with the construction, maintenance or operation of public transportation facilities.
Eye Nose What
March 6, 2019 at 9:39 pm
The root problem seems to be that many of the ASB have been intimidated. With some 100 or so voting and the result is 100% smacks IMMEDIATELY of intimidation. Unless it is 100% in favor of a Birthday resolution or “Congratulations On Your New Baby”, etc. etc. Ole Miss is being destroyed by Abnormals who showcase their perversion and the press, especially the Daily Mississippian, quickly back ANYTHING they promote. Forget it! The pendulum has swung too far…Ole Miss is doomed and soon the Abnormals and other hell-bound individuals will be in charge. COMPLETELY.
Lf
March 6, 2019 at 10:27 pm
Read the first words on the statue….in memory of the Confederate dead…..this statue was not placed as a racist symbol but as a memorial to the young men who gave their lives. In 50 years how will these young people feel when a new generation wants to remove the Viet Nam memorial?
FacsRfriendly
March 7, 2019 at 8:18 am
Time to relocate students that are more concerned with making a social statement than getting an education. This re-writing of history to placate an obnoxious sanctimonious minority is ridiculous. The tail is waging the dog. You attend the university by choice. If you don’t like it or offends your sensitive little minds, then go else ware.
James Hays
March 8, 2019 at 9:40 am
As an “old”(class of 1951) alumnus. I support any action that will keep memorials as they are. All things change except history, and it must remain
as it happened and not as the present generation wants to interpret it.
James Hays '51
March 8, 2019 at 9:50 am
Well spoken. We cannot erase history! But we can learn by it.however, this apparently has not been learned by some.
Karl Burkhalter
March 8, 2019 at 5:00 pm
From Louisiana CSA Governor Henry W Allen Jan 1865
YANKEE TREATMENT OF SLAVES.
“To the English philanthropist who professes to feel so much for the African slave, I would say, come and see the sad and cruel workings of your favorite scheme.–Come and see the negro as he is now in the hands of his Yankee liberators. See the utter degradation–the ragged want–the squalid poverty. These false, pretended friends who have taken him away from a kind master and comfortable home, now treat him with criminal neglect, and permit him to die without pity. I give you good Yankee authority–one William H. Wilder, a convict in the penitentiary at Baton Rouge, pardoned by the President of the United States, and made the agent for Yankee plantations. He says the negroes on these estates have died like sheep with the rot. On one in the Parish of Iberville, out of six hundred and ten slaves, three hundred and ten have perished. Tiger Island, at Berwicks Bay, is one solid grave yard. At New Orleans, Thibodaux, Donaldsonville, Plaquemine, Baton Rouge, Port Hudson, Morganza, Vidalia, Young’s Point and Goodrich’s Landing, the acres of the silent dead will ever be the monuments of Yankee cruelty to these unhappy wretches. Under published orders from General Banks, the greatest farce was perpetrated on the negroes. The laboring men on plantations were to be paid from six to eight dollars per month, and the women from two to four dollars. In these orders the poor creatures after being promised this miserable pittance, were bound by every catch and saving clause that a New England lawyer could invent. For every disobedience their wages were docked. For every short absence from labor they were again docked. In the hands of the shrewd grasping Yankee overseer, the oppressed slave, without a friend or guardian, has been forced to toil free of cost to his new master. I saw a half-starved slave who had escaped from one of the Yankee plantations. In his own language he said “that he had worked hard for the Yankees for six long months–that they had ‘dockered’ him all the time, and had never paid him one cent!” This is the sad history of them all. The negro has only changed masters, and very much for the worse! And now, without present reward or hope for the future, he is dying in misery and want. Look at this picture ye negro worshippers, and weep, if you have tears to shed over the poor down-trodden murdered children of Africa.”
bkt1965
March 10, 2019 at 7:01 pm
Thank you for posting MS code. Ole Miss read the statutes! MS code you can’t move monument. Now is the ASB going to vote to change the flag?
bkt1965
March 10, 2019 at 7:10 pm
Thank you for posting MS code. Ole Miss read the statutes! MS code you can’t move the monument. Now is the ASB going to vote to change the flag? Forget about political correctness, learn from this monument. Read about those youngmen our University Greys who gave their lives. The Ole Miss student body unless you are military or a veteran, will never know probably in their life times whether right or wrong will have to sacrifice their homes and leave school. 1860’s think about it.
Cecil Vance
March 11, 2019 at 11:12 pm
Yes it is sir, yes it is!!!