Saturday, the new statue honoring members of the US Colored Troops, a segregated part of the Union Army during the Civil War, was unveiled in the historic town square of Franklin.
It stands opposite a 37-foot Confederate monument erected in 1899, known as 'Chip', which has faced appeals for its removal for years. However, the city doesn't own the Confederate monument and maintains it is legally unable to remove it.
Designed by sculptor Joe Howard, the new statue depicts a USCT soldier standing near eye level so that viewers can see his wisdom, Pastor Chris Williamson said at the unveiling.
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Situated in Williamson County in central Tennessee, Franklin was the site of the 1864 Battle of Franklin, a significant turning point in the Civil War and one of the Confederacy's worst defeats.
Concerned that the complete history of the Civil War was not being portrayed, the new statue and five historical markers have been added as part of a project dubbed 'The Fuller Story.'
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The four-year project was headed by Baptist minister Hewitt Sawyers and three other residents, culminating in the statue unveiling on Saturday, an event attended by hundreds.
'Here is a black man who was enslaved, who gave his life to go out to help free other people,' Sawyers spoke to the New York Times of the new statue.
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'To be standing here, now, in the face of a statue that represents enslaving those people and to know that, because he was willing to do that, we won — what a powerful message,' he remarked.
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Sawyers said at a panel discussion on Thursday that he had avoided downtown Franklin since childhood because it meant seeing the Confederate statue.
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He believed the statue needed to come down but said that talks with community members with a passion for local Civil War history had 'changed my heart about that.'
For years, some Franklin residents have raised concerns about the towering 'Chip' monument, which depicts a Confederate soldier at a parade, resting on top of a tall column.
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The monument was erected by the Daughters of the Confederacy in honor of the Confederate troops who died in the Battle of Franklin. The private group still owns the monument, but it has been restored several times at the city's expense.
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Following a 2010 restoration of the Confederate monument, then-Mayor John Schroer declared that the statue was 'an important piece of the city of Franklin.'
In 2017, following the deadly right-wing rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, a petition circulated for the removal of the Chip statue.
At the time, Franklin's city administrator said that state law prohibited removing the statue without the permission of the Tennessee Historical Commission. The issue is still tied up in the courts.