Florida representative presses to preserve, restore Confederate monuments

Confederate monuments in Florida could be rising from the dead if a proposed bill makes it through the Legislature this year.

The bill of State Rep. Dean Black, R-Jacksonville, would not only outlaw the removal of Confederate monuments and other historical memorials, but also require local governments to replace those that have been removed since 2017.

In Jacksonville, Mayor Donna Deegan recently removed two statues honoring women of the Confederacy, the Florida Time-Union reported.

House Bill 395 is entitled the Historical Monuments and Memorials Protection Act.

“It is the intent of the Legislature that the state of Florida takes all actions to protect and preserve all historical monuments and memorials from removal, damage, or destruction,” the bill reads.

Any elected official who violates the law is subject to a fine or removal from office.

If local governments don’t have the funds to restore monuments taken down since 2017, state funds will be provided and then deducted from future state grants, the proposal says.

Cecile Scoon, co-president of the League of Women Voters of Florida, said Black’s proposed legislation is part of a pattern in Florida to “whitewash” the state’s troubled racial past.

“Only the history that shows white people in control, slave owners fighting for their South so that they could own people, that’s the kind of history that must be shown,” she told The Center Square. “That’s obscene.”

The NAACP last year issued a travel warning for Black people going to Florida, Scoon pointed out.

“In his effort to rewrite American history to exclude the voices, contributions of African Americans and the challenges they overcame despite the systemic racism that African Americans have faced since first arriving in this country, Gov. DeSantis has signed various controversial anti-civil rights measures into law,” the NAACP said in the warning, referring to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, now a candidate for president.

Black’s bill sends another, similar message to Black people, said Scoon.

“It says, ‘You’re not welcome and that the only history that matters is white history,” said Scoon.

Black did not return a phone call requesting comment.