Money Pours In To Move Tampa's Confederate Memorial

TAMPA, FL — Hillsborough County’s Confederate memorial monument may soon occupy a new space. Just one day after the county commission said $140,000 would need to be privately raised to cover about half the costs associated with the memorial's relocation, the goal has been met. The county estimates the total cost of moving the memorial from in front of the downtown Tampa courthouse to a Brandon cemetery will be about $280,000.

Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn, former Buccaneers Coach Tony Dungy and dozens of other contributors helped reach the goal in a single day. A gofundme.com page set up to offset the cost of moving the statue garnered support from more than 710 people.

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“Thank you so much Tampa Bay,” organizers of the gofundme page wrote Thursday afternoon. “With outside donations, we are now over $140,000. We couldn’t have done it without your help.”

Buckhorn took to Facebook Thursday morning to share a photo of the check he wrote out to cover his donation.

“Not a City statue, but I have a moral obligation to do my part,” Buckhorn wrote. “Now take it down.”

Dungy challenged the Tampa Bay area’s sports franchises to make donations. The Bucs, Lightning and Rays all answered the call, Channel 10 reported.

Last month, commissioners reversed an earlier decision to keep the statue in place. That vote paved the way for Hillsborough County to give the memorial back to the Florida Daughters of the Confederacy for relocation. On Wednesday, Aug. 16, the commission said it needed $140,000 raised privately to help cover the costs of taking the 106-year-old statue down and safely relocating it.

How soon the relocation might happen now that the money has been raised remains unclear.

The lightning-fast fundraising effort comes in the wake of last Saturday’s deadly rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The “Unite the Right” rally left one counter-protester dead and has increased racial tensions across the country. The rally was planned by white supremacist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, to protest the removal of a Confederate monument.

Since Saturday’s violence, riots and rallies have broken out across the country. In Durham, North Carolina, an angry mob claiming to be anti-fascists toppled a century-old statue of a Confederate soldier outside a courthouse.

Image via Shutterstock