Crews remove Confederate statue outside Kentucky courthouse

OWENSBORO, Ky. (AP) — A Confederate statue that stood outside a western Kentucky courthouse for more than a century was removed by county workers with little fanfare.

The “Soldiers Monument” at the Daviess County Courthouse was taken down Tuesday morning and moved to the road department, the county’s top official, Judge-Executive Al Mattingly, told the Messenger-Inquirer.

He said it will be kept there while officials decide what to do with it. Mattingly said the statue of a soldier with a gun could be placed elsewhere in the county or sold. The base, reading “To Our Confederate Heroes,” remains in place for now.

Daviess County officials voted to remove the statue in 2020, but a lawsuit over its ownership delayed any action. Daviess Circuit Judge Lisa Payne Jones ruled last month that the statue belonged to the county, the newspaper reported.

The Rev. Rhondalyn Randolph, president of the Owensboro NAACP, led the charge for removal, and said she’s thankful the statue that stood on the courthouse lawn since 1900 is gone.

Randolph said her aim was never to erase history, but “to promote truth for how things actually happened without romanticizing the Antebellum period.”