West Virginia Republicans seek to criminalize removal of Confederate statues

Nearly 158-years after its founding West Virginia – a state forged from the fires of America’s civil war – remains stuck between north and south. Now lawmakers are considering a bill that would protect Confederate monuments from removal or renaming. Supporters claim they are protecting everyone’s history. Opponents call the bill “traumatic and mentally exhausting”.

At a moment of national reckoning on race, the debate is fierce. “We were the Union. West Virginia was born out of seceding from Virginia, if i’m not mistaken,” said Delegate Sean Hornbuckle, one of the state’s few Black lawmakers. “We’re advocating for people who wanted to kill us.”

The bill being considered by West Virginia’s Republican-controlled legislature would criminalize the removal of Confederate statues unless that removal is first approved by the state’s historic preservation office.

Last year some 168 Confederate symbols were removed in cities and states across the US according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the majority after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.

The national shift has clearly given impetus to the West Virginia bill. “We’ve seen a lot of attacks on historical monuments and names, and I think West Virginia is uniquely situated, historically, to have an interest in that,” said delegate Chris Phillips, a Republican and the bill’s lead sponsor.

The West Virginia Monument and Memorial Protection Act of 2021 seeks to prevent city councils, county commissions, boards of education, universities and any other public entity from removing statues or renaming structures dedicated to people who participated in a United States military conflict – unless the removal or renaming has been approval by the West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office.