Activist Group Threatens to Turn Stolen Confederate Monument Into Toilet Unless Demands Are Met
“White Lies Matter” says it will return the $500,000 stone chair if the United Daughters of the Confederacy displays a specific banner
White Lies Matter stole the Jefferson Davis Memorial Chair from Confederate Circle, a private section of Old Live Oak Cemetery in Selma, Alabama. (Photo by Carol M. Highsmith / Buyenlarge / Getty Images)
By Isis Davis-Marks
SMITHSONIANMAG.COM
APRIL 7, 2021 4:32PM
In March, a group that calls itself “White Lies Matter” removed the Jefferson Davis Memorial Chair—a Confederate monument worth an estimated $500,000—from a graveyard in Selma, Alabama. Now, the self-described “antiracist action group” is threatening to use the artifact as a toilet unless its ransom terms are met.
White Lies Matter emailed its demand to two local news outlets, the Montgomery Advertiser and AL.com, on Monday morning. The message calls on the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), a group that seeks to protect Confederate monuments around the country, to display a banner featuring a quote from black activist Assata Shakur at its Richmond headquarters.
The quote reads, “The rulers of this country have always considered their property more important than our lives.”
Members of White Lies Matter said that they had already delivered the banner to the UDC. They instructed the organization to hang the sign this Friday—the 156th anniversary of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Union General Ulysses S. Grant—at 1 p.m. and keep it in place for 24 hours.
More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/group-just-took-confederate-monument-confederate-cemeteryand-theyre-threatening-turn-it-toilet-180977441/
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