- Other
- Segregation
- 1908–2020
- DeKalb County
The DeKalb Confederate monument (1908–2020)
A 30-foot obelisk dedicated beside the old DeKalb County courthouse in 1908 by a Confederate veterans' camp and a United Daughters of the Confederacy chapter. A judge ordered it removed as a public nuisance in June 2020, after years of campaigning by local activists and students.
The record
The obelisk, dedicated on April 25, 1908, described the Confederate dead as 'of a covenant keeping race'. In 2019 DeKalb County added a plaque saying it had been erected to glorify the 'lost cause' and had 'bolstered white supremacy and faulty history'. On June 12, 2020, on the City of Decatur's petition, Superior Court Judge Clarence Seeliger declared it a public nuisance under Georgia law and ordered it removed by June 26; crews took it down near midnight on June 18. The Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights, Hate Free Decatur and Decatur high school students had campaigned for its removal. A 12-foot John Lewis memorial by Basil Watson, planned jointly by DeKalb County and the City of Decatur, was unveiled on the site on August 24, 2024.
Today: The John Lewis Memorial on Decatur Square beside the Old DeKalb County Courthouse.