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New Charleston commission on racial reconciliation to set sights on statues, monuments


John C. Calhoun Statue, Charleston (WCIV)
John C. Calhoun Statue, Charleston (WCIV)
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After forming a new City Council commission tasked with helping blaze a path forward in Charleston's mission of racial reconciliation and anti-discrimination, Mayor John Tecklenburg confirms part of that new ad hoc committee's focus will be on what to do about several controversial monuments and statues in the city.

Jack O'Toole, spokesperson for Mayor Tecklenburg, told ABC News 4's Anne Emerson Thursday the new Racial Diversity & Reconciliation Commission will review the city's official stance on the continued display of such polarizing memorials as the John C. Calhoun statue in Marion Square, and the Confederate Defenders monument at The Battery.

A new petition to remove the towering Calhoun statue from privately-owned Marion Square has received over 6,500 signatures in less than a week. The rememberance to Calhoun has long drawn the ire of civil rights activists and progressives in Charleston due to Calhoun's personal background as a slave owner and white supremacist.

Calhoun was a U.S. Vice President, Senator, Secretary of State and Secretary of War. He also was an ardent defender of slavery as a ”positive good" who used his station as a highly influential politician to derail efforts aimed at ending or curtailing slavery in the United States in the period prior to the Civil War.

Charleston, Calhoun's home, was at the epicenter of slavery in the United States. It's estimated 40% of all enslaved Africans brought to North America arrived via ship in Charleston.

The issue of removing the Calhoun statue and monument was last at the forefront of Charleston's political consciousness in 2017 following deadly violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The violence at the Charlottesville rally, an event itself in response to a growing trend of removing memorials to the Confederacy throughout the South, sparked an even greater surge in calls to remove such historical markers.

When the issue of the Calhoun statue came before Charleston City Council at the time, Tecklenburg said he opposed removing it and other monuments to controversial historical figures tied to slavery and the Confederacy.

Instead, Tecklenburg said he favored altering historical statues and monuments by adding more context about their subjects' connection to slavery, racism and white supremacy.

Regarding the Calhoun statue, Mayor Tecklenburg submitted to the city’s Commission on History a plan to add a contextualized plaque to it. The history commission approved the language for the proposed plaque in December 2017, but City Council never took decisive action on a proposal to affix the contextualized plaque to the Calhoun monument.

Discussion was tabled in January 2018, and the proposal has remained in limbo. The city did, however, pass a resolution in 2018 formally apologizing for Charleston's role in slavery.

Meantime, the inaction on monuments and statues could soon change with the formation of the new Racial Diversity & Reconciliation Commission.

Charleston has been beset with ongoing protests as part of a nationwide movement against racism and police brutality in response to the widely publicized death of Minnesota black man George Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis.

Protests began Saturday, May 31, and devolved from passionate but peaceful demonstrations into a full-scale riot Saturday night along King Street and other parts of historic downtown Charleston.

In an emergency city council meeting Tuesday morning to discuss the city's ongoing response to the civil unrest, Mayor Tecklenburg appointed council members William Dudley Gregorie and Jason Sakran to co-chair the new racial reconciliation committee.

Gregorie and Sakran are tasked with working alongside AmberJohnson, Director of Charleston's fledgling Dept. of Diversity, Racial Reconciliation, and Tolerance. She was hired for the newly created position in 2019.

Mayor Tecklenburg has given the group three months to come up with a path forward. The commission is open to all city council members, and Johnson will be adding additional staffing to the group.

City council is set to discuss the commission and its work at an upcoming council meeting.

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