OXFORD, Miss. — A controversial statue of a Confederate soldier that has stood at the University of Mississippi since 1906 may soon move to a not-so-prominent part of campus.
A Confederate soldier on Lyceum Circle will be moving from its current location to a Confederate cemetery on campus near the the Tad Smith Coliseum.
The move comes after a unanimous vote by the school’s associated student body to have the statue moved, though it still has to be approved by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and Institutions of Higher Learning..
“University Avenue comes right up to this. It’s the first thing everybody sees when they come to our campus. I think it’s time for it to move,” sophomore Dylan Barker said.
Freshman Courtni Plummer believes the statue definitely sends a bad message.
“It has racism attached to it. Whether it’s meant to hurt people’s feeling or not, it is,” she said.
The university released plans for the Confederate Monument Relocation Project showing detailed photos of the Confederate soldier statue as it stands now, how it will be dismantled and the proposed route to transport the 40,000-pound monument from one side of campus to another.
While there are hundreds of graves in the Confederate cemetery on campus, plans are to place the monument just outside of the cemetery’s north entrance. Improved parking and a new pathway are also in the project plans.
You can review the drawings and the specifications of the proposed plan now.
