Florida Representative Wants General's Statue Gone

Lawmaker wants Florida Confederate general's statue gone from U.S. Capitol
Orlando Sentinel
By Jim Turner
News Service of Florida
September 9, 2015

TALLAHASSEE — The bronze statue of Confederate Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith, which has stood in the U.S. Capitol since 1922, would be replaced by a statue more representative of Florida, under a bill filed by a Republican state lawmaker.

Rep. Jose Felix Diaz said he's been considering the proposal (HB 141) for several years. The bill comes as people across the country have reconsidered Confederate symbols after the racially motivated slaying in June of nine black church members in South Carolina.

"I think that the shooting in South Carolina created an awareness that wasn't there before," said Diaz, who represents parts of Miami-Dade County. "When I first started asking questions about Gen. Kirby [Smith], the political appetite wasn't there for this conversation to be had. People were not intrigued by him or Statuary Hall."

The Smith statue in the National Statuary Hall Collection is in the Capitol Visitor Center.

The Florida Senate is considering similar legislation, Katie Betta, a spokeswoman for Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, said in an email.
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Must be my day to rant. Why now? Why after all these years? Why not when Tuskegee Airmen were sent to fly during WWII but still couldn't sit where they wanted at a lunch counter or even remain in their seats on a bus outside the base?

As a former mechanic for the Tuskegee Airmen, Gainesville's Stephen Lawrence remembers that time in his life as a time of survival, not the flashy romanticism depicted in Lucas' new film.

Lawrence, now 90 years old and a longtime resident of Gainesville, was born in Philadelphia in 1921. A welder by trade, Lawrence earned a decent wage working in shipyards until he was drafted in 1943.

"I didn't want to go," Lawrence said. "It was segregated real bad. I mean real bad. You hear me?"

Lawrence sat in a comfortable chair in the sunroom of his house. The house is impeccably clean and warmly decorated, the air smelling of soap and cornbread.

"Personally, it was survival," Lawrence said. "I'm there, I don't want to be there, but I want to leave alive, and while I am there I am going to do the best I can at what I am doing. That was it. I was determined to come home."

During his military service from 1943 to 1947, Lawrence said he experienced racism from inside the military and outside, in the towns in which he was stationed. Lawrence recalled one instance in which he went to the convenience store located on the base and asked to buy a pack of Philip Morris cigarettes, but was refused service.

Or when one of these heroes was robbed and carjacked in the same day at the age of 93?

Why not when it happened to the Montford Point Marines being treated the same way. During the groundbreaking for a memorial,

Jacksonville Mayor Sammy Phillips said it was the beginning of something “that’s been a dream for a long time” and the opportunity to pay tribute to a group of trailblazers who were willing to risk their lives for a nation that still viewed them as second-class citizens.

There is what is popular to the Facebook/Twitter generation and what is history to those who risked their lives for the freedom to Tweet and remain a twit about all the folks going through a lot worse so they wouldn't have to.