Florence Council votes down marker 4-2

By Bernie Delinski Staff Writer

Published: January 22, 2026

FLORENCE — City councilmembers who voted down a marker designed to give context to the Confederate monument outside the Lauderdale County Courthouse expressed a desire for unity.

Those favoring the marker said history must be fully addressed before unity is reached.

Council members denied a request to place the marker on the courthouse lawn by a 4-2 vote with Jackie Hendrix, Josh Bowling, Thomas Spence and Chapel King opposing it, while Kaytrina Simmons and Alisa Dickson favoring it.

Hendrix said during the meeting he has never favored or opposed a marker but believes this one would have been divisive.

"Tonight, we were asked to vote on a divisive marker referencing a divisive statue that was to be placed in a divisive location, and my question is: 'How does that make our community better?' because in my opinion it doesn't, and that's why I voted the way that I did," Hendrix said.

He said he believes there is "a better way."

"What I prefer to see is a marker that represents our past, one that represents unity and healing, and reminds us that we need to continue to work and build on these things every day. I think that's the compromise that we're looking for as a community and I hope as a council that we can discuss this as we move forward," Hendrix said.

Simmons said the effort to have a marker has included revisions and votes, as recently as in 2024 when the previous council administration opposed it.

"The can has continuously been kicked down the road," she said.

Simmons said she has heard complaints from those who said they were disturbed by the language on the marker.

"History is history, the good, bad and the ugly, and I know a lot of people have said, 'Well we don't like the language,'" she said. "Basing it on that, it's never going to be good language. You can't write that as a good language, because the situation was not good."

Project Say Something officials have wanted the marker as a way to bring perspective to the statue, which was dedicated in 1903 with a speech that declared whites are above blacks and referred to blacks as "mongrels."

The marker declares the majority of Confederate monuments were erected during the end of Reconstruction and spread of Jim Crow laws, which "were codified when the state constitution was rewritten in 1901 to disenfranchise Black citizens. These later Confederate monuments were often strategically placed at public sites, such as in front of courthouses or capitol buildings, to convey the permanence and prevailing power of white supremacy."

It includes comments from Dr. H.A. Moody's dedication speech, during which he stated the monument was there to memorialize the Confederate soldier and “all that soldier stood for.”

He added, the marker states: "And yet another message has that pure white figure for us, a message more wonderful and of higher import than all the rest. In this our southland flows the purest Anglo-Saxon blood that pulses in any human veins,' and 'nowhere here [are Black people] accorded social equality."

Dickson said she talked to a lot of people and researched the matter, including Moody's speech.

"I have read it many times over, regardless of how emotionally difficult it was for me to take in," she said.

Dickson also remembers images of slavery and repression in history books.

"Figuratively speaking, I hear voices calling out to me, many of them screaming, 'Remember me,'" she said. "They are the voices from images from the history books from my young adolescence that haunt me still to this day."

Dickson said healing and unity cannot occur by "sweeping history" under the rug and her vote was one of "love and unity."

King said she received a lot of emails both for and against it and voted based on what she believes is best for the city.

"In moving Florence forward, we need to focus on positivity," she said.

Bowling said he could not get accurate information on some aspects of the project, including its proposed location and how it would be funded. He said he does not know whether the city, Project Say Something or city's Historical Commission would pay for it.

"I'm a very practical thinker," Bowling said. "I don't know where it's going exactly. I don't know who's paying for it. How am I supposed to vote on that?"

He said this may not be the end of the discussions about the marker.

"If this is going back to the drawing board, maybe so, I don't know," Bowling said.

He and all the council members thanked the public for their input on the matter and expressed a desire to have discussions with them if they want to do so.

Spence said he received a lot of emails that were "copy and pasted."

"I want to know your true feelings, your true thoughts and I did not get those in those emails," Spence said. But I am about unity. Unifying the city and moving Florence forward, that's what we're here for. I feel like that's what we're elected for."

bernie.delinski@timesdaily.com or 256-740-5739. Twitter @TD_BDelinski