Florida to replace Confederate statue in US Capitol

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida’s governor has ordered a statue of a Confederate general at the U.S. Capitol to be removed and replaced with one of an African-American woman.

Gov. Rick Scott signed the bill (SB 472) making that step official Monday.

The bill removes a statue of Confederate Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith and replaces it with a statue of Mary McLeod Bethune. She founded a school that would eventually become historically black Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida.

Bethune’s statue would be the first African-American woman in Statuary Hall.

Congress allows each state two statues in Statuary Hall. Florida’s other one is of John Gorrie, whose inventions led to modern-day air conditioning.

Free News Delivery by Email

Would you like to have the day's news stories delivered right to your inbox every evening? Enter your email below to start!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

For security, use of Google's reCAPTCHA service is required which is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

I agree to these terms.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.