Plaque calling Jefferson Davis a hero removed from his statue in Kentucky Capitol

Officials have removed a controversial plaque on the Jefferson Davis statue in the Kentucky Capitol Rotunda that called the president of the Confederate states “a patriot, hero, statesman.”

State curator Leslie Nigels informed the Rotunda Committee of the Historic Properties Advisory Commission Thursday that the lower plaque on the pedestal of the Davis statue was removed by state facilities workers on the afternoon of Sunday, March 11.

The commission had voted unanimously last Oct. 24 to remove the plaque, citing its subjective language. The panel’s decision was delayed so Republican Gov. Matt Bevin’s administration could review state law to make sure the commission had the authority to remove the plaque.

The news of the plaque’s removal at Thursday’s meeting did not please John T. Suttles of Paducah, the Kentucky division commander of Sons of Confederate Veterans.

He told the committee that Davis, a native of Kentucky, had contributed to the United States before the Civil War that made him worthy of recognition in the state Capitol and that the plaque should have remained. He said he suspected the plaque removal was “done in the middle of the night” because “they are ashamed of what they are doing.”

Suttles mentioned Davis’ service in the Mexican War and as secretary of war under President Franklin Pierce.

He later told reporters that government officials want “to keep rewriting history.”

“We hated the war. We hated slavery, but most of people weren’t fighting for slavery,” Suttles claimed.

Asked how he could support a traitor to his country, Suttles said Davis was never tried for treason. The U.S. government did charge Davis with treason, but U.S. president Andrew Johnson’s impeachment hearings delayed the trial. The government later granted Davis amnesty.

Charlie Young of Lexington asked the committee what will happen to the removed plaque.

Nigels said it will be preserved and may be taken to the Kentucky History Center in Frankfort. She said it will not be reinstalled on the Davis statue.

Young then asked if the public could still see the plaque.

Committee chairman Craig Potts said no final decision has been made on the plaque’s new location.

Raoul Cunningham, president of the state conference of the NAACP, said removal of the plaque “was just a way to try to make him look good. It tries to sanitize him but he was what he was — a traitor who led states who wanted slavery.”

Cunningham said the entire statue should be removed from the seat of state government. He and other black leaders have said it is an insult that the Davis statue, which stands a few feet from a larger statue of Abraham Lincoln and not far from the governor’s office, occupies a place of honor in the Capitol.

He also said he was disappointed that the issue of removing the statue was not taken up in this year’s legislative session.

“We talked about it but we realized it wasn’t going anywhere,” he said.

The controversial issue of Confederate statues intensified nationwide last August when protests erupted in Charlottesville, Va., about the city’s plan to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. It had stood in the city since 1924. Violence left one person dead and dozens injured.

The state historic properties commission, which oversees state-owned statues, voted 7-2 in August 2015 to keep the statue where it has been since 1936, but to add educational material that helps put the statue in historical context. Although that vote was taken more than two years ago, no educational material has been produced.

Scott Alvey, deputy director of the Kentucky Historical Society, gave the Rotunda Committee Thursday an update on the research it is doing on statues in the Capitol Rotunda.

The statue was erected at the height of the Jim Crow era, when segregation laws proliferated throughout the South, with the help of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and $5,000 in taxpayer money approved by the state legislature.

The Kentucky Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy has previously threatened to sue if the plaque is removed.

This story was originally published March 29, 2018 at 12:08 PM with the headline "Plaque calling Jefferson Davis a hero removed from his statue in Kentucky Capitol."