Posted on 09/15/2020 10:02:32 AM PDT by Kaslin
A group of Paris, Tennessee residents said they had reason to believe that members of ANTIFA or Black Lives Matter wanted to tear down a statue of a Confederate soldier perched at their local courthouse square.
According to the U.S. Census numbers, Paris has slightly more than 10,000 people.
Local residents said a woman who grew up there, Rachel Allison, who now resides in Los Angeles, encourages people to remove the statue from a distance of 2,000 miles away.
The statue, which the locals refer to as The Sentinel, is 120 years old. The statue symbolically faces the north, almost as if it’s tracking a possible invasion from the Union Army, said Rick Revel, a local who has taught and written books about American history.
Revel said he and other people in town heard a few weeks ago that ANTIFA and Black Lives Matter were on their way to the statue.
“The word went out on a Saturday evening that this would take place. Therefore, the message went out like the Minutemen of old, and I was one of the first to arrive [to guard the statue]. There were probably two to three of us who got there at the same time, 10 minutes after the signal went out,” Revel said.
“There were some people driving around in cars shouting ‘Black Lives Matter’ and honking their horns. Of course, everybody there by the statue yelled back ‘All Lives Matter.’ It was pretty much a tit for tat that you would normally see at something like that. It did dissipate and by 10 p.m. it ended. It wasn’t violent. It was all peaceful.”
Henry County Commissioner David Webb, who is also the County Historian, told The Tennessee Star Monday that the rumor that members of BLM or ANTIFA were on their way originated out of Murray, Kentucky. There, Murray State University students peacefully protested a Confederate statute.
“I think some people got confused. There was no group that was planning to take it down or deface it. It was just a rumor,” Webb said.
“In response to that rumor there was a group of people that showed up to defend the statue, if that were to happen. There was nothing to it, once the dust settled down.”
Allison posted a petition on Change.org demanding the statue’s removal.
The Star contacted a Rachel Allison on Facebook who said she originally hails from Paris, Tennessee but now lives in Los Angeles. That Rachel Allison did not reply as of press time.
But Allison, on her petition, said it’s time to “stop glorifying” Confederate soldiers “who fought for their right to have slaves.”
“This statue sets us back centuries and needs to be removed in order to better reunite all of our communities,” Allison said.
“The biggest problem with old Southern heritage is that people believe that the Confederates are a sign of ‘Southern pride’ which in reality it is symbolizing racism, the slavery of black men and women, and segregation. It is time we move past this and look to the future and I believe taking down this statue is the first move.”
Revel, meanwhile, said another online petition opposes Allison’s.
“Tennessee is known as the Volunteer State, so named after Davy Crockett and the Tennesseans who died at the Alamo,” the counter petition said.
“Henry County is also known as the Volunteer County in the Volunteer State. All history matters.”
Webb told The Star that it’s highly likely the statue will stay exactly where it is.
“If the statue were to be moved or relocated or renamed or anything done with it then first there would have to be a vote of the county commission since it is county property. The statue falls under the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act, which is a state law. That addresses all monuments, memorials, plaques, statues, and anything historical. A petition would then have to go to the Tennessee Historical Commission, and they would have to vote on that,” Webb said.
“If you read the act there is also a clause in there that states an automatic denial if it is on the National Register of Historic Places. And the statue is. Because it’s part of the Paris Commercial District that is on the National Register. Basically, it is a non-starter, even if the County Commission wanted to take it down. The Tennessee Historical Commission is not going to approve that, not unless there is some compelling reason why it should be moved. Right now there are no plans to do so.”
Living in Kalifornia can poison your mind.
Shaddup and make me a sammich, bitch.
This has got to stop!
I know a similar statue that is guarded by townspeople and they mean business!
They’ll get their way too. It only takes a couple of these ass holes to whine and we always give in.
Does President Trump’s edict that statue destroyers get an automatic 10 years in prison extend to Confederate statues ?
I sure hope so.
Living in Kalifornia can poison your mind.
Not only that but it also can make you stupid and lose all common sense. No wonder people are leaving the state in droves unfortunately many of them will revert to the same old crap in their new location, pretty much the same crap muslims will do, run away from poor condition, most of them caused by their religion and once they get to their new place they will start the same crap all over.
Their premise is wrong. Removing this statue would have zero bearing on racial justice.
Anyone facing racial injustice would not benefit one whit by removing this statue.
When they want you to take a statue down PUT ANOTHER UP.
Some people in California are just ignorant. If Oliver Stone didn’t produce it then it isn’t real history. ANTIFA protestors probably don’t even know what an abolitionist is and can name one. They probably don’t know Harriet Beecher Stowe or her historic importance or Josiah Henson either. ANTIFA is fake ignorant protesting for profit and the corporations funding them are just killing the small business competition and Trump’s growth policies.
White girls of that age have lost their sanity. The riots are utterly filled with them. They are generally stupid, emotion driven, and desperate to prove that they are cool and nice.
Reminds me of the “welcome refugees” girls in Germany.
That busybody Alison is not going to be welcome at the next town barbeque.
Maybe she moved to California because her mind was already poisoned.
Good place for her, then.
There’s nothing like ignorance. And it multiplies.
said the advocate of policies that seek to divide and separate us.
“Rachel Allison, who now resides in Los Angeles”
I doubt she’s a Tennessee native. Probably another North Eastern migratory parasite.
Sadly I saw our local Confederate Soldier statue, which I first saw in 1956, vandalized and removed from the square where Sam Walton had his 5&10 Store.
And in Oklahoma, their former pride of the American Indians, STAND WATIE, had his statues and plaques removed, by the Cherokee Nation itself.
ALL Confederate soldier statues face north. Because that’s where the enemy is.
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