Alabama Senate Votes To Protect Confederate Monuments

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) – Alabama lawmakers are inching closer to prohibiting the removal of Confederate monuments and other long-standing historical markers.

The bill prohibits the removal and alteration of monuments and memorial street and school names that have stood for more than 40 years on public property.

The Alabama Senate on Thursday voted 25-8 to accept conference committee revisions. Representatives must approve the report in order to send the bill to the governor.

The debate came as some southern cities are rethinking the appropriateness of monuments honoring the Confederacy. New Orleans has removed some Confederate monuments.

Republican Sen. Gerald Allen, the bill sponsor, said it’s important to protect “all history.”

Sen. Hank Sanders, a Selma Democrat, says the bill protects monuments that represent “oppression to a large part of the people in the state.”