FRANKLIN, Tenn. (CN) — Despite wide support from residents, Franklin, Tennessee has had to sue the local chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy in its attempt to install four historical plaques describing the history of Civil War-era black residents in the public square.
After the fatal 2017 Charlottesville, Va., riot over the removal of a statute of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, the Rev. Kevin Riggs and other Franklin-area pastors decided to do something about the Confederate memorial in the city’s public square.
The pillar erected to remember Confederate soldiers who died in the bloody Battle of Franklin is nicknamed “Chip” for the injury the mustachioed statue received to its hat when it was being installed.
“[If] something like what happened in Charlottesville happened in Franklin, the city would look to the churches and the pastors to bring healing,” Riggs said. “And so instead of waiting for something negative to happen, what could we do that would be positive?”
Franklin, pop. 79,000, is 20 miles south of Nashville.
In the months after the Charlottesville riot, city and county governments have responded differently to the question of Confederate monuments in their communities. Hamilton County, Tenn., decided to keep its monument of Confederate General A.P. Stewart on its courthouse lawn in Chattanooga.
Memphis found a loophole in state law to remove its statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Confederate general who founded the Ku Klux Klan.
Franklin is trying to forge a third way, by adding plaques near the Confederate monument to create context. But a question over land ownership has the United Daughters of the Confederacy fighting the proposal.
According to Riggs, the city’s current telling of its Civil War history is one-sided and lacks the stories of black residents of the area.
Riggs is pastor of Franklin Community Church, a small church with a focus on social justice. While the church operates within the wealthiest county of Tennessee, many members of Riggs’ church are low-income and about half are black.
In late summer, Riggs joined a group of pastors and a historian to present a proposal to Franklin’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen to “give a fuller story” about Franklin’s Civil War history as experienced by its black residents.
The four plaques would tell the stories of a former slave market, the black residents who signed up to fight for the Union Army at a nearby provost office, a race riot and the Reconstruction Era.
Eventually, the group wants the city to commission a statue to memorialize the 300 black residents from the area who fought in the Civil War with the United States Colored Troops.
The idea garnered wide support. The county Chamber of Commerce and the visitors bureau sent letters of support, as did a handful of local historical preservation organizations.
But the local Daughters of the Confederacy claimed that the public square was theirs, thanks to an old court decree, and they said they were not consulted about the monuments. To resolve the question, the City of Franklin sued the Franklin Chapter 14 of the United Daughters of the Confederacy on Aug. 31 in Williamson County Chancery Court.
“On August 28, 2018,” the 5-page complaint states,“counsel for the Franklin UDC threatened to sue the city if it placed historic markers depicting the experience of the African-Americans before, during, and after the Civil War within the Public Square, claiming ownership of the Public Square.”
The lawsuit, filed by City Attorney Shauna Billingsley, asked the court to declare who owned the land surrounding the Confederate monument.
Billingsley told Courthouse News that the city has used the public square for various celebrations. The city flies flags from it. A Christmas tree stands there for the holidays, and the United Daughters of the Confederacy has not objected to the city’s displays.