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An obelisk-style monument honoring Kentuckians who died in the Confederacy during the Civil War will be removed from a spot near the University of Louisville campus, the Associated Press reports.

But the monument, which has stood in its place since 1895, won’t be put away forever — the statue will be moved to another location, University President James Ramsey confirmed in an announcement with Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer on Friday.

“It’s time for us to move this monument to a more appropriate place,” Ramsey said while standing in front of the stone memorial, which is capped with a statue of a Confederate solider. It stands next to the university’s gleaming Speed Art museum that just completed a $60 million renovation.

City officials have not yet determined where the statue will live, but until a decision has been made, the structure will be disassembled, cleaned, and placed into storage. Efforts to remove the monument, which was gifted to the city by the Kentucky Woman’s Monument Association, have been ongoing since the late 1990s. Pressure for cities nationwide to remove Confederate symbols and displays were renewed last summer after self-proclaimed White supremacist Dylann Roof killed nine in racially motivated attacks at Charleston, South Carolina’s Emanuel AME church.

Via The AP:

Ricky Jones, a professor of Pan-African studies at the university, said he has been pushing for removal of the statue since he arrived at the university in the late 1990s. “I can’t tell you how happy I am,” Jones said after the announcement Friday. “I think this statue being on the campus is somewhat akin to flying the Confederate flag over the (university’s) administration building.”

Jones wrote in a newspaper opinion piece last week that the statue is a “towering granite and bronze eyesore glorifying the nadir of America’s past.” He and Mayor Fischer said the university was much smaller when the statue was put up at the turn of the century, and the campus has developed around it.

A university survey showed that 73 percent of Louisiana residents oppose the monument’s removal.

SOURCE: NOLA | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty | VIDEO SOURCE: Inform

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