IN-PERSON Barcelona. Section A

Abstract

Over 55 years after the United States Civil Rights Movement and 160 years after the Civil War, tensions remain between Americans who value maintaining memorials to the Confederacy versus those who see them as upholding a white-supremacist system. In Alabama and other Southern states, public debate continues over removing monuments, while increasingly tourists visit Civil Rights monuments and museums. For residents, family identity, economic disparities, and tension over race and power are all part of these debates. In 2017, an Alabama law was enacted preventing the removal, relocation, or alteration of historical monuments more than 40 years old. However, in Birmingham, a majority Black city and a major protest site during the Civil Rights era, a prominent statue was first covered and then removed, resulting in a large fine. In Tuscaloosa, a new Civil Rights trail has been developed to highlight the actions taken by citizens to change public policy and access, forcing the University of Alabama to acknowledge the history of enslaved people who helped build the campus, and the slow history of providing access and opportunities to African Americans. This has resulted in a hotly debated process of changing building names and adding markers to contextualize this history. The purpose of this paper is to look at voice and power in public discourse about removing monuments, as well as the addition of Civil Rights monuments in Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in order to address issues of diversity and inclusion in urban spaces.