Mississippi mayor says a Confederate monument is staying in storage during a lawsuit

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A Confederate monument that was removed from a courthouse square in Mississippi will remain in storage rather than being put up at a new site while a lawsuit over its future is considered, a city official said Friday.

“It’s stored in a safe location,” Grenada Mayor Charles Latham told The Associated Press, without disclosing the site.

James L. Jones, who is chaplain for a Sons of Confederate Veterans chapter, and Susan M. Kirk, a longtime Grenada resident, sued the city Wednesday — a week after a work crew dismantled the stone monument, loaded it onto a flatbed truck and drove it from the place it had stood since 1910.

The Grenada City Council voted to move the monument in 2020, weeks after police killed George Floyd in Minneapolis and after Mississippi legislators retired the last state flag in the U.S. that prominently featured the Confederate battle emblem.

The monument has been shrouded in tarps the past four years as officials sought the required state permission for a relocation and discussed how to fund the change.

The city’s proposed new site, announced days before the monument was dismantled, is behind a fire station about 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers) from the square.

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