The JAX Chamber is calling on the community to “look ahead” following last week’s removal of Confederate statues from Springfield Park.
In its first public remarks since Mayor Donna Deegan’s Dec. 27 order to haul away the statues, the chamber issued a statement Jan. 4 saying the local business community was focused on attracting economic development to Jacksonville and “ensuring everyone in our city has the opportunity to succeed.”
“The statues have been removed and it’s time to look ahead,” the chamber’s statement read.
“Our community has major issues in front of us this year and we are proudly partnering with Mayor Deegan and the City Council to move our city forward.”
In calling for the community to move past the controversy over public display of Confederate monuments, the chamber added its voice to the Jacksonville Civic Council’s on the issue. The Civic Council posted a statement on its website Dec. 27 saying the time had come to “put the issue of Confederate monuments behind us.”
The Civic Council is a nonprofit group of prominent business leaders from more than 70 organizations, while the chamber represents more than 3,000 businesses in Northeast Florida.
Deegan’s office said the removal was paid for by private funds and was preceded by an opinion from the Office of General Counsel that City Council approval was not needed because public funding was not involved.
The Women of the Southland statues, which had been on display since 1915 in the park, were a long-running source of division in the community, with proponents of their removal calling them a symbol of white supremacy and opponents saying they were historic artifacts that deserved protection.
The removal was the second of its kind in recent years, following Mayor Lenny Curry’s June 2020 order to take down a bronze statue of a Confederate soldier from atop a monument in what is now James Weldon Johnson Park. The entire monument has since been removed from the park.
The chamber’s statement came a day after Jacksonville City Council President Ron Salem introduced legislation that would establish new rules about who can accept monetary or in-kind services donations to the city and how those gifts can be used.
Bills that would protect Confederate monuments and penalize officials who try to remove them also have been filed in the state Legislature for consideration in its upcoming session.