I looked up the return of the Robert E. Lee highway marker in Charleston. It stood for many decades outside a local school, but it was removed for some reason in 2021. They city held on to it for a while until returning it to the rightful owners, the UDC.
The central park in Charleston is Marion Square. It is maintained by the city, but the land is owned by a local historic association. The UDC negotiated an easement from the historic association to place the monument in Marion Square on what is essentially privately-owned land. The details are interesting.
Quote:
In May of 1947, the Charleston Chapter 4 of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), erected the Lee Memorial at the Charleston School of Math and Science (then Rivers High School) to mark the Lee Memorial Highway (King Street). In July of 2021, the school district had the memorial removed. We waited almost three years for the Attorney General, Alan Wilson, to enforce the Heritage Act but when it was clear that he was going to allow the statute of limitations to expire, the American Heritage Association recruited the UDC to be a Plaintiff and filed a lawsuit against the Charleston County School District and School Board in July of 2024. We waited until November of 2024 to actually serve the lawsuit in hopes that the school board would remedy the situation. They did not.
In their reply to our lawsuit, the district/school board shockingly claimed that the Robert E. Lee Memorial was not protected by the Heritage Act and that only Alan Wilson could enforce the Heritage Act which he had declined to do. We have a Republican Attorney General that is not enforcing the monuments law and a supposed "conservative" school board which fought us in court to prevent the re-erection of the Lee Memorial!
Working to attain victory even with the courts denying us standing, the Attorney General refusing to enforce state law, and the "conservative" school board leading the charge for cancel culture, we worked behind the scenes to secure a better location along King Street at Marion Square. The monument was re-erected in the early morning hours of December 10th, 2025! The historic preservation easement protecting the monument in perpetuity was purchased with $10 Confederate.
