BRUNSWICK, Ga. — A monument to Confederate soldiers located in Hanover Square was taken down Tuesday and loaded onto a trailer in three separate pieces.
City Manager, Regina McDuffie, said the statue is being stored by the city as it is waiting for the statue's owners to pick it up.
The Confederate statue is privately owned.
Almost 120 years of history was uprooted, as well as feelings of disappointment and happiness.
"It's a good thing I think we don't need anymore reminders of hatred Buffalo New York, just had 10 people shot you know enough is enough we need to do something different," Nadiah Yacoue, who visits Hanover Square frequently, said.
"We've had some pretty deep in depth conversations and it can be a lot of people saying it's racial and all that and it's not everybody sees each other's side some people don't want to see it but I mean everybody has equal arguments on everything," a Brunswick resident, who wished to remain anonymous, said.
Brunswick mayor Cosby Johnson released the following statement:
"This morning our City removed the singular vestige of a bygone and abhorrent era in our Nation's history. Through community debate and engagement on April 7, 2021, the City Commission voted overwhelmingly to remove the statue from our City. With respect to that brave decision and alongside the devoted and powerful people of Brunswick, my administration and this commission executed the will of our citizens in removing the confederate statue from Hanover Square.
What is known at a deeper level, is the work it takes to ever so slightly bend the are of humanity towards a more just and vibrant Brunswick for all of its citizens. That continues to be the focus of my administration as well as this commission. Together we have invested in bringing affordable healthcare to our citizens that include both pediatrics and dentistry so that children don't have to go to the emergency room for toothaches and mothers can have more accessible maternity care, we have funded historical raises for both police and fire with stipends to live inside of Brunswick so that we can invest in the next generation of community savants, and we have allocated substantially more dollars to sustaining affordable housing in our historically depressed neighborhoods.
Let today stand as a monument to the ever-moving tide that brings us closer to love, equality, and understanding."
City officials would not say where the dismantled statue was being taken, according to The Brunswick News. One city worker said it may be going to "a graveyard of Confederate soldiers in Waynesville."
"I would like it destroyed number one if you know your history and you know what the Civil War was about it's nothing more about slavery so we don't need anymore reminders of that what we do need is change," Yacoue said.
"If they want to take this down and move it somewhere else build a confederate park so that way a lot of people that are in the South that grew up and were raised down here and that have no issues with the confederate army because it was our history can go see it," the resident, who wished to remain anonymous, said.
The marble Confederate soldier that rose from the center of the tree-draped Hanover Square was wrapped in a covering during the Ahmuad Arbery trial.
While the statue was being removed, one person drove by honking and waving in support of the action, according to The Brunswick News.
Brunswick Commissioner Kendra Rolle and Mayor Cosby Johnson were present to see city employees and contractors take the statue away.
