Confederate monument in Hemming Park taken down

Jacksonville, FL — Work crews assembled at Hemming Park before sunrise to remove the Confederate monument.  It has stood at the park since 1898, according to the Florida Archaeology Network.

The monument was donated to the State of Florida by Charles C and Lucy Key Hemming. Standing at 62 feet, the Confederate monument in Hemming Park was one of the few landmarks of Jacksonville that survived the 1901 fire.

There have been prior efforts to remove the monument, but all prior attempts have ultimately faded away. But, just over two weeks after George Floyd was killed in police custody in Minneapolis, demonstrations have been held daily in Jacksonville and in communities across the nation.

Last Friday, the Jacksonville Jaguars marched from TIAA Bank Field to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, where wide receiver Chris Conley brought up discussion about the removal of the monument in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests and police brutality.

“Our revisionist history would tell us that it’s there to honor men fighting for state’s rights, but true history would tell us that in the cornerstone addressed, Alexander Stevens said that our states are built on the fact that the negro is inferior and slavery and subordination is his normal and natural state. That’s true history,” Conley said.

In 2018, the City of St. Augustine opted to keep a Confederate war memorial in place in the Plaza de la Constitucion in downtown, but with added contextualization.

WOKV’s Hannah Lee is at Hemming Park and will be providing updates throughout the day here, on 104.5 FM.