A large bronze statue of the late civil rights icon leader and Georgia congressman John Lewis was installed in Decator, Georgia on Friday. The statue was meant as a replacement for a contentious Confederate monument that was removed in 2020.
Lewis was known for his role as a leader in the Civil Rights Movement and represented the Atlanta area in the House when he was first elected in 1986.
“You must be able and prepared to give until you cannot give any more,” Lewis said, encouraging Black Lives Matter protestors, in an interview with the Washington Post one month prior to his death in July 2020.
At the time of his passing, Lewis was one of the most prominent members of the House and the longest-serving member of the Congressional Black Caucus. In the face of hard but necessary causes, Lewis famously urged citizens to get in “good trouble”.
The 12-foot tall bronze statue in his honor was made by sculptor Basil Watson. It will be officially unveiled on August 24.
“It’s exciting to see it going up and exciting for the city because of what he represents and what it’s replacing,” Watson told the Associated Press during the installation.
The Confederate obelisk, installed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1908, stood in the town square for 112 years until it was removed in 2020.
Following a deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, organizations such as Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights and Hate Free Decatur began been calling for the obelisk’s removal, but state law stopped the local government from taking any action.
The group successfully had a plaque installed nearby to provide context for the monument in 2019. It wasn’t until 2020, however, when racial justice protests swept the country following the police murder of George Floyd, that Southern institutions reconsidered their longstanding tributes to the Confederacy.
The city asked a Georgia judge to order the obelisk’s removal, as the monument was a target for vandalization and graffiti and posed a threat to public safety.
In 2020 alone, the U.S. saw the removal of nearly 100 Confederate monuments, but there are still hundreds remaining.
A task force oversaw the replacement of the Confederate monument with one honoring Lewis.
