Some don’t want to see Johnston statue moved

Published 2:00 pm Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Some Dalton residents said Tuesday that the statue of Confederate Gen. Joseph Johnston, which has stood at the intersection of Crawford Street and Hamilton Street in downtown Dalton since 1912, should remain there.

“That’s not right,” said David Belcher, who said he is a lifelong Dalton resident, to news that the Dalton chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), which owns the statue, plans to move it to the Huff House on Selvidge Street.

Representatives of the UDC and the Whitfield-Murray Historical Society confirmed Monday that the statue is slated to be moved to the Huff House, which is owned by the historical society, though no firm timetable has been set.

“That statue has been there (downtown) over 100 years, well before I was born, and there was never a problem until last year,” Belcher said.

Statues of some historical figures, including Confederate military leaders, became flashpoints across the world last year as protests, some of which turned violent, were held in several cities in the aftermath of the death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd, a Black man who died in police custody on May 25 when a white officer knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes.

In Dalton, protests, which have been peaceful, focused on the Johnston statue. Approximately 200 people filled the lawn of City Hall on June 8 following a “March for Justice,” and one of the demands of many was the relocation of the statue of Johnston to a “more appropriate place.” Some of the organizers of that march said they believed the Huff House would be such a place because of its connection to Johnston. The Huff House served as Johnston’s headquarters when the Army of Tennessee spent the winter of 1863-64 in Dalton.

A Facebook group called Don’t Let Joe Go dedicated to preserving the statue at its current location formed soon after that march.

“It is understandable but regrettable that the UDC has chosen to move it and especially to a location, I feel, that is not as prominent, secure, nor will it be appreciated,” said Tyler Martin, one of the founders of the Don’t Let Joe Go group. “But it is their property to do so, all the while taxpayers who paid for the upkeep of the monument for nearly a century get no say so. If we must, and these historic societies feel so, then let’s change the face of Dalton’s history to further accommodate feelings, feelings and emotions that I think have passed with the political hot topic of this past summer. History that apparently does not matter anymore. Furthermore, I think that those who incited the feelings to move/remove will not stop there and eventually will want more done.”

Martin noted that the statue isn’t the only image of Johnston downtown.

In 2015, students at Morris Innovative High School chose Johnston — along with Curtis Rivers (a community leader and director of the Emery Center, an African American heritage and multicultural center); Bob Shaw (a founder of Shaw Industries and Engineered Floors); Teresa Sosa (a pioneer in Dalton’s Hispanic community) and Catherine Evans Whitener (a pioneer in the chenille bedspread industry, a precursor to the floorcovering industry) — as one of the prominent Dalton figures they painted on a mural on a downtown building.

“Why is Johnston’s mural, one that was painted less than a decade ago, not a problem but the monument is?” Martin asked.

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Rome, whose district includes Whitfield and Murray counties, said Tuesday, “Our country never wins when we give into violent, left-wing, cancel culture mobs who burned our cities and called to defund our law enforcement officers.”

Greene was one of those who spoke against moving the statue during a meeting of the Dalton City Council in June. Greene, then a candidate for Congress, said she “supports keeping all of our monuments.”

“As a mother of three kids, I always want to be able to point to statues, monuments or any type of history, so that I can point them out to my children and teach them lessons about our country, whether they are good, bad, embarrassing, something that I’m happy about, something that I’m sad about or something that I wish hadn’t happened,” she said then.

Greene said people should support monuments not because they support any particular cause but because they represent history.

“Whether I see a statue that may be something that I fully disagree with, like Adolf Hitler, maybe it’s a statue of Satan himself, I would not want to say take it down,” she said. “But again, so that I can tell my children and teach others about who these people are and what they did and what they may be about.”

Eddie Sierra, who said he has lived in Whitfield County since he was 5, said he’s never given much thought to the statue.

“I read that the owners want to move it. That’s their right, and the place they are moving it to seems like a good location,” he said. “But I also don’t see why it can’t stay (downtown). It wouldn’t bother me. I don’t think it would bother many people.”

Rashun Mack, a Dalton High School graduate and a board member of the Southern Advocacy Group who is Black, said Monday that “I am glad to hear that the statue is being moved to the Huff House.”

“To me, the statue is a symbol of intolerance and oppression,” he said.

The Southern Advocacy Group organized a march on June 13 of last year during which some defenders of the statue clashed with protesters when about 60 protesters stopped across the street from the statue. On several occasions, Dalton Police Department officers had to step in and separate marchers and members of the group that was watching over the statue.

In a press release that month, the Dalton chapter of the UDC said it was “concerned for the safety and security of all parties on each side of this discussion and conflict, and further desiring that there be no conflict among the citizens and visitors of this community, respectfully request that all parties stand down to prevent further disruption, disunity or harm.”

The chapter said it was “ready and willing to consent to the relocation” of the statue.