On the eve of Juneteenth, four Confederate monuments that were taken down in 2017 have quietly returned to Baltimore after stints in storage and on display in California, and city officials are keeping their location under wraps while questions about damage, custody, and next steps pile up.
The statues were removed before dawn on August 16, 2017, in the aftermath of the violence in Charlottesville, and then spent years in a Baltimore impound lot before moving to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. During that limbo they were vandalized and left in need of costly repairs, and the trail back to the city has been uneven and opaque. Now that they are back inside city limits, many basic details are still being withheld from the public.
The set includes the statue of Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument that stood on Mount Royal Avenue, the Confederate Women’s Monument, and the Roger B. Taney Monument. Each piece carries its own history and its own controversies, and each suffered in storage or on the street. Residents and taxpayers have a stake in what happens next.
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott
The most serious reported damage happened to the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument while it sat in an impound lot, after vandals “chopped off an arm and a Confederate flag and doused the whole thing with bright red paint,” and repairs have reportedly cost tens of thousands of dollars. Those repairs and the chain of custody raise questions about public stewardship and accountability for municipal property. People want to know how much the taxpayers have been billed and who authorized the moves.
City officials have confirmed the monuments are back in Baltimore but say they will not reveal where they are being kept. ‘They are being stored in a secure facility. We will not be disclosing their location.’ That statement came during a June 9 briefing to commissioners, and it has done little to calm calls for transparency from citizens on all sides of the debate.
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott has long supported removing the monuments and framed them as symbols of a darker history. “Monuments with ties to the dark side of America’s past have come under increased scrutiny in recent years with cities across the country debating on whether they should be removed. Following the acts of domestic terrorism carried out by white supremacist terrorist groups in Charlottesville, Virginia, this past weekend cities
