CAMDEN -- Ouachita County voters will decide the future of a Confederate monument that sits on the lawn of the Ouachita County Courthouse when they go to the polls in November.
The Ouachita County Quorum Court unanimously voted Tuesday to put an ordinance to preserve the Confederate monument at the Ouachita County Courthouse on the Nov. 3 ballot.
The Ouachita County Courthouse is home to a statue dedicated to women who supported the Confederacy during the Civil War. The statue sits on the northwest corner of the courthouse grounds, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 7, 1996.
The decision to put the monument issue on the ballot comes at a time when cities across the nation are trying to decide whether it is appropriate to have Confederate monuments in public areas. Several such monuments have come down across the nation, some at the hands of protesters and others at the direction of local officials.
Little Rock removed a statue of a Confederate soldier from the MacArthur Park grounds in June at the direction of Mayor Frank Scott Jr., who said in a written statement shortly after its removal that the monument did not give context to the painful legacy of the soldiers' actions and that city parks should be inclusive spaces for all taxpayers. He recently told the city Board of Directors the monument was removed for public safety reasons.
A group that owns a Confederate monument located on the Bentonville Square announced in June that the monument will be moved to a private park, and a memorial marker to the Confederacy that had sat on the north side of the Jefferson County Courthouse in Pine Bluff for more than 45 years was removed in June as part of an agreement between the county judge and the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which owns the statue.
According to the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas, the Camden monument was put up in 1915 to honor women who supported the Confederacy during the Civil War. The Hugh McCollum Camp 778 of the United Daughters of the Confederacy was behind the effort.
"The Camden Confederate Monument is one of two Arkansas memorials that honor the women who supported the Confederate cause, and as with the Monument to Confederate Women on the Arkansas State Capitol grounds, it was raised through the efforts of the United Confederate Veterans," according to the encyclopedia. "Sufficient money was raised by the McCollum Camp, with help from the Grinstead UDC chapter and Ouachita County, to purchase a statue by mid-April 1915 and place it on the Ouachita County Courthouse grounds."