Coalition pushes to bring Confederate statue back to Bradenton

BRADENTON, Fla. (WFLA) – A group of activists want a Confederate memorial to be returned to downtown Bradenton.

The Confederate memorial was a mainstay in downtown Bradenton for 93 years until last week. After a massive protest and threats for more rallies, commissioners had it removed in the middle of the night.

“We are here to stand up and reverse this trend and say ‘enough is enough,’” said coalition member Lunelle McCallister.

Supporters are urging the commission to put the monument back. They’re collecting signatures on a petition and researching legal options. They’re also pushing for the immediate removal of county administrator Ed Hunzeker.

“This is its home. This is where it should never have been removed from. Certainly not without citizen input,” said monument supporter Barbara Hemingway.

These activists feel the commission bowed to bullies and taking down the monument amounts to erasing history.

“I’m here as a veteran and I want to make sure all our veterans are honored,” said supporter Steve Vernon.

“What’s next? What monument is next? These folks are not going to stop at that monument or memorial. There’s other monuments and memorials across the country that are not Civil War related that are getting vandalized, so these folks are not going to stop at that monument,” said Andy Strickland.

The coalition is looking at legal options and they are also working to protect similar monuments throughout the state.

Ruth Beltran with Black Lives Matter feels the monument should not stay here.

“We can’t rewrite history, that history has already been written,” she said.

“Why should we be honoring the people that fought to preserve the institution of slavery? Those are not people we want to look up to, those are not people that we want to teach our children to look up to. They were on the wrong side of history,” said Beltran.

She feels the county made the right decision.

“It’s time to get rid of symbols of white supremacy and racism, the Confederacy in the Civil War was really a fight to preserve slavery, so why should we have symbols of that around?” said Beltran.

The county commission will soon hold public comment to discuss the next home for the memorial, that date has not been set yet.