NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — A group that for years staunchly opposed the relocation of Norfolk’s Confederate monument, is now praising the city for how they handled reassembling the controversial symbol.
Crews with the city completed the relocation of the 1907 structure to Elmwood Cemetery within the last few weeks.
In all, the monument isn’t as grandiose as it had been the last century-plus. When it was located downtown at Commercial Place, it topped out at 80 feet in height.
Now the 15-foot tall bronze statue of Johnny Reb stands a lot closer to the ground, as a city spokesperson said the granite shaft made it “too large for the cemetery.” Johnny Reb faces south now instead of north, but still is unlikely to be missed as the monument was placed in the cemetery’s main crossroads. Fresh mulch and a garden surround the 23-square-foot base.
“I want to commend the City of Norfolk for keeping their word to move this to an honorable place,” said Frank Earnest, heritage coordinator for the Sons of Confederate Veterans Virginia division. “I was surprised to see the landscaping. It was put here with some care.”
Earnest, who lives in Virginia Beach, said he still would rather have preferred all monuments stay where they were, as they were. Earnest has taken legal action across the state in recent years to prevent the movement of monuments classifying them as “public works of art” and maintaining they are truly meant to honor dead soldiers with no racist intentions.
Black Americans in particular however have labeled monuments to the “Confederate dead” as symbols of oppression. In Norfolk activists regularly protested the city’s upkeep of “something representing hate and white supremacy” for years. City workers spent many hours cleaning off graffiti.
Norfolk City Council voted in 2017 to move the monument to the cemetery following the violent “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville. However, it wasn’t until this year state law changed allowing localities in Virginia to remove, relocate or contextualize their Confederate monuments.
A contractor began taking it down on June 12, two days after a destructive protest at the Portsmouth Confederate monument left one man critically injured. The job cost the city an estimated $175,500.
Under state law, the city had to offer the monument up to other museums, historical societies, governments or military battlefields. Nobody inquired, and Earnest says that is just fine with him.
Near the monument’s new resting place is the final resting place of Walter Taylor (1838-1916). Taylor’s granite cross topped tomb lists him as a aide to Gen. Robert E. Lee, and according to Earnest, it was Taylor who chaired the effort in 1885 to erect the monument “to the lost cause and to those who gave their lives for the constitutional rights and liberties of Virginia and the South.”
“It’s kind of nice that if it did have to be moved, it’s in sight of his grave.” Earnest said.
Earnest said there are also more than 400 Confederate soldiers buried on the grounds and another Confederate soldier statue stands watch in another part of the cemetery.
Norfolk is the first municipality in Hampton Roads to finish the relocation of its Confederate monument. Leaders in Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Williamsburg, Newport News, Franklin, Surry, and Pasquotank County, North Carolina, are some localities in the region that have also voted to relocate theirs.
Members from the Norfolk chapter of the NAACP were not immediately available for comment on the city’s work. A spokesperson for the city confirmed it will continue to devote resources to the clean the monument if it is vandalized in its new location.
Earnest said he hopes it is now safely ensconced.
“I hope both sides can say alright, it’s not in the prominent position in the middle of town, that should make one side happy. It’s in a place of honor in a cemetery. That makes us happy.”