Community members call for removal of Springfield Park Confederate statue

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — On the steps of City Hall in Downtown Jacksonville on Tuesday, you heard chanting and singing and saw signs saying it was “time to boycott.’’

Community members called on the City of Jacksonville to take down a long-standing monument in Springfield Park, called “A Tribute to the Women of the Southern Confederacy.” The statue is about 106 years old.

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The park it lies in was previously named “Confederate Park” until its name was changed last year.

Action News Jax previously reported a committee is working to decide what to do with several Confederate monuments in our area.

In June 2020, crews took down a Confederate statue in what is now called James Weldon Johnson Park. That same month Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry promised it would not be the last to be removed.

“This monument represents slavery,” Ben Frazier with the Northside Coalition said.

Protestors specifically called on Mayor Curry, who they said made promises last year to take down the monument.

Protesters call for removal of Confederate monument in Springfield

“I’m urging mayor Curry to do his job and to keep his word and to honor what he stated last year and take the monuments down,” District 14 Representative Angie Nixon said.

Protestors took their chants to the Mayor’s floor, where they waited outside the doors to speak with Mayor Curry.

“What we are in fact up against is the same thing that the civil rights activists of the 1960s were up against,” Frazier said.

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Protestors said the monument is a piece of art promoting an evil cause, and they won’t stop protesting until it’s gone.

“You don’t like it Jacksonville but here it is, right in your face; it’s time for us to do something about it,” Frazier said.

To ensure the monument comes down, community members said they will continue to disrupt public meetings. They called it civil disobedience.

Right now, the monument is covered in Springfield Park. We asked the City why that was the case and have not gotten a reply.

Action News Jax also reached out to the City asking Mayor Curry to comment on Northside Coalition’s protest. We also asked if he had plans in place to remove the monument. Those questions have not been answered.

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