Virginia counties vote overwhelmingly to keep Confederate monuments
Middle Peninsula voters overwhelmingly want to keep their Confederate monuments, according to results of advisory referendums in Mathews and Middlesex counties.
Mathews voters rejected a proposal to relocate the county’s Soldier’s & Sailor’s Monument on its court green at the corner of Court and Church streets by 3,778, or 80% of ballots cast, to 939, or 20%.
In Middlesex, the vote against moving its Civil War Monument from the courthouse grounds in Saluda was 3,229, or 75% of ballots cast, to 1,076.
A CNN statewide exit poll of voters asked about who they backed in the lieutenant governor’s race found stark partisan differences on the issue: 85% of those who said they supported the successful GOP candidate, Winsome Sears, said Confederate memorials should remain in place while 88% of those backing Democrat Hala Ayala said they ought to be removed.
The Mathews total exceeded by roughly 300 votes the ballots cast for Republican statewide candidates, but the Middlesex total lagged its GOP statewide tally by about 500 votes.
Mathews’s monument was erected in 1912, after a six-year fundraising effort by the Lane-Diggs Camp of Confederate veterans, the Mathews Monument Association and the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
County Administrator Melinda Conner recommended holding an advisory referendum more than a year ago, after noting that there was a strong possibility the county would be sued if the board acted on its own.
Middlesex erected its Daughters of the Confederacy monument in 1910.
After county supervisors voted 3-2 to remove the statue, acting on a request from Dawn Moore, president of the local NAACP chapter, it opted by a separate 3-2 vote the following month to hold a nonbinding referendum.
The two were the only localities in Virginia to ask voters for an opinion on their Confederate memorials.
In 2020, the General Assembly voted to allow cities and counties to remove their Confederate memorials. An old state law had required such memorials remain undisturbed.
Last month, the state Supreme Court ruled that the state could remove the Robert E. Lee memorial on Richmond’s Monument Avenue, which it has since done. Some residents living near the monument and a descendant of the family that donated land for the memorial had challenged the state’s plan to take down the statue.
Pressure across Virginia and the nation to take down Confederate memorials soared after the death of George Floyd in May 2020.
Dave Ress, 757-247-4535, dress@dailypress.com
