Floridians Reverse Course, Tell Authorities They No Longer Want Relocated Confederate Statue

America is undeniably in the middle of a cultural, race-based revolution – and it’s not the first time, either.

This is a new sort of Civil Rights Movement in 2020, fueled by the infinite knowledge of the internet and the exuberance of the American youth.  The nation is no longer satisfied with simply stating that “all men are created equal”, or that there will be liberty and justice for all.  This time around, citizens of all backgrounds are demanding that we hold ourselves to the standards that our founding fathers espoused during our break from Britain.

In this crusade, young Americans have decided to move toward a nation in which we no longer publicly celebrate the Confederacy of the Civil War, choosing instead to relegate the symbolism of the rebellion to museums and other places of education.

In Florida, this meant reneging on a decision to bring “home” a Confederate statue from the Capitol in Washington DC.

Officials of a central Florida county voted on Tuesday to rescind a decision last year to give a new home to a Confederate statue being removed from a gallery in the U.S. Capitol, saying the reversal would “bring the community together.”

The Lake County Board of Commissioners voted 4-1 to ask the governor to find somewhere else to put a nine-foot-tall bronze statue of General Edmund Kirby Smith, who served in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War of 1861-65.

The area has a history of racial tension.

Lake County is the site of the notorious “Groveland Four” convictions of a group of Black men wrongfully accused of raping a white woman in 1949, considered by many as a glaring example of racial injustice.

“This decision will bring our community together,” said Leslie Campione, the commission’s chair. “This is the right decision.”

Smith was also a prominent member of the Ku Klux Klan, and this detail likely factored into the recent decision.