![]() Soon after the announcement that the entrance’s Confederate statue would be moved, plans surfaced to renovate the cemetery to create a sort of “shrine” effect (though the university says the design is not final). ![]() And so was the university’s pledge, just last month, to review its “admissions and judicial review policies and protocols” to deal with prospective students whose social media pages include racist posts.Įven so, each step away from the school’s “Old South” image ultimately seems marked by ambivalence. Tate Reeves signed a law to retire it this week, was the last state flag to feature the Confederate battle flag design-was a similarly important one. ![]() Persuading the university five years ago to discontinue the use of the Mississippi state flag-which, until Gov. Undoubtedly the ultra-conservative IHL relaxing its grip is an important step. In mid-June, the IHL agreed to move the statue to a less-prestigious placement, keeping watch over the dead in a Confederate cemetery in an area with less foot traffic, behind an old coliseum that’s no longer in regular use. The “Ole Miss” moniker has long informed the core of the institution’s identity and the surrounding community, not to mention its powerful brand.īut in this moment of broader racial reckoning spurred by the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, the already thinning tolerance for hand-wringing over such symbols has largely evaporated. More than a year ago, the Associated Student Body Senate for inclusion and cross-cultural engagement unanimously passed a resolution that stated, “Confederate ideology directly violates the tenets of the university creed that supports fairness, civility, and respect for the dignity of each person.” While plans were made with the university to move the statue, the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning stepped in, declaring that the marble soldier falls under its purview and putting the plans on indefinite pause. “We still have a long way to go, but it’s still a victory, and I think we are allowed to celebrate it,” Arielle Hudson, a recent graduate and the university’s first Black female Rhodes scholar, tells me.īut it wasn’t easy to get here. A plaque at the base of the monument, revised in 2016 as part of a historical contextualization project, allows that the statue was one in a series of memorials that “were often used to promote an ideology known as the ‘ Lost Cause,’ which claimed that the Confederacy had been established to defend states’ rights and that slavery was not the principal cause of the Civil War.”īut now, after more than a century, the anonymous soldier will finally be ousted from his premier spot-a move that’s the direct result of a sustained campaign led by University of Mississippi students. He is perched atop a matching white marble spire so that the tip of his hat reaches toward the treetops. The gift from the Daughters of the Confederacy, a soldier, his arm in salute, a rifle at his side, has presided over passersby entering the university since 1906. Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.Īt the entrance of the University of Mississippi campus in Oxford, the statue of a white marble man sits among the magnolia and oak trees.
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