The City Council of Jackson, Mississippi, voted to remove a statue of the city’s namesake, President Andrew Jackson, from City Hall.
The six-person council voted 5-1 in favor of the removal on Tuesday, according to the Washington Post. The sole vote in opposition came from the lone Republican on the council.
“While removing a statue does little to change our condition as oppressed people, we should not have to constantly encounter the likenesses of those who profited off of the blood, sweat, & despair of our ancestors or see them immortalized as honorable,” Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said in a statement.
“When I took office, I found out the name Jackson means ‘God has shown favor.’ So, we want to reclaim the name of our city for that meaning and divorce it from the legacy of a brutal owner of enslaved people who was instrumental in initiating the Trail of Tears against indigenous people. Black people have reclaimed and repurposed names given to our families by slaveowners for centuries. This is no different,” the Democrat added.
Statues of Jackson in Jacksonville, Florida, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C., have been targeted in recent weeks as protesters seeking to raise awareness about inequality in the United States have attempted or succeeded in taking down monuments dedicated to historical figures. In Washington, a statue of Jackson stands in Lafayette Park outside of the White House, and protesters tried tearing it down, but police intervened.
Jackson was the seventh U.S. president and served in both the House and Senate. He also was a Tennessee militia leader and U.S. general, well known for his brutal tactics against and treatment of Native American tribes. His family had hundreds of slaves over a 66-year period that began in 1794, according to Jackson’s Hermitage.
