Politics

Some Examples of Confederate Tributes Around the South

Published

11 years ago

June 24, 2015

The Mississippi flag hangs, with the other state flags, in the subway between the U.S. Capitol and Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, Tuesday, June 23, 2015. In the wake of a massacre at a black church in Charleston, S.C., a bipartisan mix of officials across the country is calling for the removal of Confederate flags and other symbols of the Confederacy. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

The Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — Tributes to the Confederacy and the Jim Crow era that have existed still abound in the Deep South and beyond more than a century after the end of the Civil War.

Here are some of the most high-profile displays, including several that are being criticized anew following the fatal shooting of nine parishioners at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina:

— ALABAMA: An 88 -foot-tall Confederate memorial sits at the Capitol entrance nearest the governor’s office. It features four different Confederate banners, including the battle flag. Jefferson Davis, the lone president of the Confederacy, is said to have laid the cornerstone at a ceremony in 1886. Two nearby public high schools, now with nearly all-black student bodies, are named for Davis and Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate forces.

— ARKANSAS: There are two Confederate monuments on the Capitol grounds, one honoring Confederate women, the other soldiers.

— FLORIDA: No confederate flag flies at the Florida Capitol, but the state flag, whose main design was adopted in 1900, features a St. Andrew’s Cross — an ‘X’ emblazoned across the banner. The imagery is similar to the Battle Flag, though it also reflects a flag of the Spanish empire when it ruled Florida from the early 16th century until 1763. Several county courthouses and local public squares or parks feature Confederate veterans monuments.

— GEORGIA: The Capitol and surrounding grounds feature multiple statues, busts and portraits of Confederate war heroes and segregationist politicians. In the Capitol rotunda is a portrait of Alexander H. Stephens, vice president of the Confederacy. A bust of Stephens sits just outside the rotunda. The Georgia state flag, a compromise version that replaced a design with the battle flag, is modeled after the “Stars and Bars,” the first national flag of the Confederacy. Twenty miles from the Capitol is Stone Mountain, which features a massive carving of Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee, all on horseback.

— KENTUCKY: Jefferson Davis is among the statues included in the Capitol rotunda. The Davis statue is situated behind the Abraham Lincoln statute that sits in the rotunda’s center, so that the president of the Confederacy appears to be looking over the shoulder of the 16th U.S. president who governed during the Civil War.

— LOUISIANA: A statue of Robert E. Lee sits at the center of Lee Circle, a major traffic circle connecting downtown New Orleans to the Garden District neighborhood. Another city thoroughfare is named for Jefferson Davis and includes a statue of the Confederate president.

— MISSISSIPPI: The state flag is the last U.S. state banner to include an explicit image of the Confederate battle flag. At one Capitol entrance sits a monument to the women of the Confederacy. The University of Mississippi’s athletics teams are knowns as the “Ole Miss Rebels,” and the school’s band often plays “Dixie” at sporting events.

— NORTH CAROLINA: An obelisk memorial to the state’s Confederate war dead and a monument to the “North Carolina Women of the Confederacy” are located on the old Capitol grounds in Raleigh. The Capitol square also includes statues of Civil War-era Gov. Zebulon Vance and Gov. Charles Aycock, known partly for his anti-black rhetoric at the end of the 19th century.

— SOUTH CAROLINA: The Confederate battle flag flies at the base of a Confederate monument in front of the Capitol. It flies between a Confederate monument and a statue of Benjamin Tillman, a noted white supremacist who spent three decades — from 1890 to 1918 — as governor and U.S. senator. Behind the Capitol is a statue of Strom Thurmond, a long-serving U.S. senator who ran for president in 1948 as a “Dixiecrat” to protest the national Democratic Party’s softening stance on segregation.

— TENNESSEE: A bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest, an early Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, is inside the Capitol.

— VIRGINIA: Arlington National Cemetery, formerly the plantation of Robert E. Lee, includes a Confederate section with almost 500 graves surrounding a memorial. Future President William Howard Taft authorized the memorial in 1906, when he served as secretary of war for President Theodore Roosevelt.

___

Compiled by Bill Barrow in Atlanta; Kim Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama; Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas; Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Mississippi; and Gary Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina.

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Oakland Post: Week of December 24 – 30, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – December 24 – 30, 2025

Published

15 hours ago

December 25, 2025

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Alameda County

Oakland Council Expands Citywide Security Cameras Despite Major Opposition

In a 7-1 vote in favor of the contract, with only District 3 Councilmember Carroll Fife voting no, the Council agreed to maintain its existing network of 291 cameras and add 40 new “pan-tilt-zoom cameras.”

Published

5 days ago

December 21, 2025

Oakland Post

At the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference, Flock Safety introduces new public safety technology – Amplified Intelligence, a suite of AI-powered tools designed to improve law enforcement investigations. Courtesy photo.

By Post Staff

The Oakland City Council this week approved a $2.25 million contract with Flock Safety for a mass surveillance network of hundreds of security cameras to track vehicles in the city.

In recent weeks hundreds of local residents have spoken against the camera system, raising concerns that data will be shared with immigration authorities and other federal agencies at a time when mass surveillance is growing across the country with little regard for individual rights.

The Flock network, supported by the Oakland Police Department, has the backing of residents and councilmembers who see it as an important tool to protect public safety.

“This system makes the Department more efficient as it allows for information related to disruptive/violent criminal activities to be captured … and allows for precise and focused enforcement,” OPD wrote in its proposal to City Council.

According to OPD, police made 232 arrests using data from Flock cameras between July 2024 and November of this year.

Based on the data, police say they recovered 68 guns, and utilizing the countywide system, they have found 1,100 stolen vehicles.

However, Flock’s cameras cast a wide net. The company’s cameras in Oakland last month captured license plate numbers and other information from about 1.4 million vehicles.

Speaking at Tuesday’s Council meeting, Fife was critical of her colleagues for signing a contract with a company that has been in the national spotlight for sharing data with federal agencies.

Flock’s cameras – which are automated license plate readers – have been used in tracking people who have had abortions, monitoring protesters, and aiding in deportation roundups.

“I don’t know how we get up and have several press conferences talking about how we are supportive of a sanctuary city status but then use a vendor that has been shown to have a direct relationship with (the U.S.) Border Control,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”

Several councilmembers who voted in favor of the contract said they supported the deal as long as some safeguards were written into the Council’s resolution.

“We’re not aiming for perfection,” said District 1 Councilmember Zac Unger. “This is not Orwellian facial recognition technology — that’s prohibited in Oakland. The road forward here is to add as many amendments as we can.”

Amendments passed by the Council prohibit OPD from sharing camera data with any other agencies for the purpose of “criminalizing reproductive or gender affirming healthcare” or for federal immigration enforcement. California state law also prohibits the sharing of license plate reader data with the federal government, and because Oakland’s sanctuary city status, OPD is not allowed to cooperate with immigration authorities.

A former member of Oakland’s Privacy Advisory Commission has sued OPD, alleging that it has violated its own rules around data sharing.

So far, OPD has shared Flock data with 50 other law enforcement agencies.

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Families Across the U.S. Are Facing an ‘Affordability Crisis,’ Says United Way Bay Area

United Way’s Real Cost Measure data reveals that 27% of Bay Area households – more than 1 in 4 families – cannot afford essentials such as food, housing, childcare, transportation, and healthcare. A family of four needs $136,872 annually to cover these basic necessities, while two adults working full time at minimum wage earn only $69,326.

Published

5 days ago

December 20, 2025

Oakland Post

Affordable housing is the greatest concern for consumers, it’s followed by the cost of groceries. Courtesy photo.

By Post Staff

A national poll released this week by Marist shows that 61% of Americans say the economy is not working well for them, while 70% report that their local area is not affordable. This marks the highest share of respondents expressing concern since the question was first asked in 2011.

According to United Way Bay Area (UWBA), the data underscores a growing reality in the region: more than 600,000 Bay Area households are working hard yet still cannot afford their basic needs.

Nationally, the Marist Poll found that rising prices are the top economic concern for 45% of Americans, followed by housing costs at 18%. In the Bay Area, however, that equation is reversed. Housing costs are the dominant driver of the affordability crisis.

“The national numbers confirm what we’re seeing every day through our 211 helpline and in communities across the region,” said Keisha Browder, CEO of United Way Bay Area. “People are working hard, but their paychecks simply aren’t keeping pace with the cost of living. This isn’t about individual failure; it’s about policy choices that leave too many of our neighbors one missed paycheck away from crisis.”

The Bay Area’s affordability crisis is particularly defined by extreme housing costs:

Housing remains the No. 1 reason residents call UWBA’s 211 helpline, accounting for 49% of calls this year.
Nearly 4 in 10 Bay Area households (35%) spend at least 30% of their income on housing, a level widely considered financially dangerous.
Forty percent of households with children under age 6 fall below the Real Cost Measure.
The impact is disproportionate: 49% of Latino households and 41% of Black households struggle to meet basic needs, compared to 15% of white households.

At the national level, the issue of affordability has also become a political flashpoint. In late 2025, President Donald Trump has increasingly referred to “affordability” as a “Democrat hoax” or “con job.” While he previously described himself as the “affordability president,” his recent messaging frames the term as a political tactic used by Democrats to assign blame for high prices.

The president has defended his administration by pointing to predecessors and asserting that prices are declining. However, many Americans remain unconvinced. The Marist Poll shows that 57% of respondents disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy, while just 36% approve – his lowest approval rating on the issue across both terms in office.