Charleston Gazette-Mail – Hopeful that a nine-year, one-man campaign to remove the statue and bust of Confederate Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson from the West Virginia Capitol grounds is coming to fruition, Charleston realtor Howard Swint on Tuesday called for a special meeting of the Capitol Building Commission to remove what he called symbols of “neo-Confederate hate speech.” Read full article here.
Swint said the time has come to move the statue and bust to less-conspicuous locations in the basement of the state Culture Center, in light of a national movement to remove symbols of the Confederacy, including last week’s vote to rename Stonewall Jackson Middle School in Charleston.
Organizations petitioning for the removal of the Jackson statue include the ACLU, Black Lives Matter-West Virginia, the state chapter of the NAACP, Mountain State Justice, the state chapter of the National Association of Social Workers and the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy.
