The United Daughters of the Confederacy is not in favor of relocating the Confederate memorial statue from downtown Orangeburg, the organization’s state president said Tuesday.
“We are not in any agreement to move the monument from where it is located,” said Darlene Dowdy of Anderson in response to a Times and Democrat report about legislation that would authorize relocation. The legislation has Senate approval but Orangeburg Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter said it faces an uphill battle in the House.
Cobb-Hunter said Orangeburg Sen. Brad Hutto, who introduced the bill along with Bowman Sen. Vernon Stephens, indicated the legislation has the backing of Confederate heritage organizations. Such support for relocation of the statue would be crucial to support in the House, she said.
And Stephens said, “I believe the bill will pass. There’s been conversation with a Confederate group, and they’re in favor of that monument being relocated to a Confederate cemetery. I don’t see that as being an issue.”
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“We have not made an agreement with anyone,” Dowdy said. “We have always been against the moving of the monument.”
Hutto, who was not available for comment for the Tuesday story, said later in the day that he consulted with city leaders about the legislation but has not talked with the UDC or other groups.
The protocol was followed, Hutto said. The city approved removal of the statue and the Supreme Court ruled a legislative vote could remove the statue. Legislation to do so was introduced.
"I spoke to city officials and asked were they prepared to move forward," Hutto said. The city owns the land upon which the statue is located and wants the monument moved.
“All we’re doing is following the same set of steps as other folks.”
Hutto said city officials and the legislative delegation were aware the legislation had been introduced.
"My conversations have been with the city and the delegation," he said.
Dowdy said the forerunners of the UDC raised the funds to put up monuments in Orangeburg and around South Carolina. “So we feel kind of like watch-guards over their work.”
Moving the 33-foot, 129-year-old monument to a Confederate cemetery in Orangeburg and away from Memorial Plaza, once the site of the county courthouse, would make it “seem like it’s not important,” she said.
The legislation calls for relocating the statue to The Pioneer Graveyard, also known as the Old Pioneer Cemetery, a burial site for Confederate soldiers located at the Old Dixie Club Library, also known as Dixie Hall.
Buzz Braxton of Orangeburg, who wants to keep the monument on Memorial Plaza, said he made contacts in the wake of Tuesday’s T&D report. His non-profit S.C. History Preservation Committee has intervened along with the UDC and others in a legal case seeking removal of the Orangeburg statue.
“I sent out a mass email across the state. I wanted people to be aware of the article,” he said.
Braxton said he contacted the UDC and was told “unequivocally” that the organization is not in favor of the legislation.
“South Carolina’s rich traditional heritage is under attack,” the attorney for Braxton’s organization, Lauren Martel, said. “We need to be sure we follow the law. This statute clearly falls under the Heritage Act.”
The Heritage Act of 2000 forbids removal of Confederate, civil rights and other monuments without approval of the General Assembly. The state Supreme Court in 2021 upheld the law but struck down its provision that a two-thirds vote of approval in both houses is required to remove monuments.
UDC believes in protecting all monuments, not just those from the Civil War, Dowdy said. “The Heritage Act protects all monuments and that is what we think should happen.”
“We’re not racists,” Dowdy said. UDC is an organization that provides scholarships and supports the military in addition to preserving history.
Orangeburg City Council voted in 2020 to remove the Confederate monument from Memorial Plaza but only after legislative approval.
“We understand the city voted to move the monument. They did the right thing by waiting for the Heritage Act,” Dowdy said.
“The monument in Orangeburg is where it stands,” Dowdy said. “To move it is against the law at this point.”
The lawsuit seeking removal of the Confederate monument from Memorial Plaza has been on hold. Orangeburg attorney Skyler Hutto, Sen. Hutto’s son, represents the plaintiffs seeking removal of the monument.
