For 112 years, a 30-foot pillar stood outside the courthouse grounds in the suburban Atlanta city of Decatur. Erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, it suggested the Civil War was about state’s rights and “Southern honor” instead of the traditional cause: slavery.
That structure was finally taken down last year. And in its place, officials now plan to erect a monument that honors the late John Lewis, a former legislator and activist who spent his whole life fighting for Civil Rights, reports CNN.
It is the latest chapter in a years-long battle the city has waged to rid itself of the Confederate symbol in its town square, a symbol it considered a dark reminder of slavery. Decatur is a liberal enclave in the predominantly African American county of DeKalb.
But it also lies in a state that, in 2019, passed a law protecting Confederate monuments.
But Dekalb, along with Fulton County, were heavily part of the voting block that delivered the White House to Joe Biden/Kamala Harris and the Senate to the Democrats via Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. It is undeniably John Lewis country. Lewis passed this last summer, but consider this: Warnock was Lewis’ pastor and Ossoff his student.
