JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — After rejecting a proposal to move a Confederate monument, a white elected official in Mississippi said this week that African Americans “became dependent” during slavery and as a result, have had a harder time “assimilating” into American life than other mistreated groups.
Monuments that have stood for more than a century outside courthouses and on other public property have been removed or relocated in other Southern states in recent days, and supervisors in several Mississippi counties are discussing the matter.
In northeastern Mississippi’s Lowndes County, supervisors voted along racial lines Monday against moving a Confederate monument that has stood outside the county courthouse in Columbus since 1912.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Lowndes County supervisor Harry Sanders listens as Bishop Scott Volland, unseen, asks the county to consider removing a Confederate monument from the courthouse lawn during a Lowndes County Board of Supervisors meeting on June 15.
Several other Mississippi cities and counties and all eight of the state’s public universities have stopped flying the state flag in recent years, saying that the Confederate symbol does not properly represent a state with a 38% black population.
