ORANGEBURG COUNTY, S.C. — The Confederate statue at Orangeburg Memorial Plaza may soon have a new home after Orangeburg city council wrote a letter of support of bill 990, which would move the statue to the Orangeburg Confederate Cemetery.
“Some will be happy and some will be sad," said Orangeburg mayor Michael Butler.
Butler says a request was made for the statue to be moved in 2020, at a time when people nationwide were calling for the removal of Confederate statues.
The Southern Poverty Law Center reports 169 Confederate symbols across the country were removed that year.
Butler says the request was made in accordance with the Heritage Act. The act, passed in 2000, makes it legal to remove state monuments with approval from the General Assembly.
“We came to the conscious decision that we better write a letter of support and get in the vein of the law," he said.
The cemetery where the statue may move is a burial site for Confederate soldiers.
“We said that if we take it down, we don’t wanna destroy history and some ties that people have to it in the City of Orangeburg, but we would find a final resting place for it," said Butler.
The bill has passed the Senate and is currently in a house committee.