UM NAACP Chapter Says Confederate Statue Plaque Is A Failure

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – The campus NAACP says a plan to add context to a Confederate statue at the University of Mississippi is a failure because a proposed plaque does not mention slavery as the central issue in the Civil War.

Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter announced Friday that construction had started for a stand to hold the plaque and could be finished by the end of the month on the Oxford campus.

However, the campus NAACP says Monday that the university’s proposed language “woefully fails its students, faculty and staff when it does not acknowledge the true history of the Confederacy.” The group cites Mississippi’s 1861 declaration that it was seceding to protect slavery.

The NAACP says there’s no need to mention the statue was a gathering point for a mob fighting integration in 1962.