November 11, 2020
Dear Mr. Gillespie,
I haven’t had the opportunity to meet you, yet. I moved permanently to Audubon Park one year ago this week. I grew up in Brandon, then lived in Madison for the past 33 years. As an Ole Miss graduate, it was always a goal to live in Oxford, but especially as I’ve seen Oxford become the best small town in Mississippi.
I hope you feel, as I do, that the time has finally come to move our monument, as Ole Miss is doing. It is, more than ever, a symbol of division and hate. The combination of the monument plus white supremacists, neo-confederates, Confederate flags, and political flags is a situation that will continue to get worse. It is an embarrassment for Oxford. Also, a significant percentage of our citizens, myself included, find the monument very offensive. I assume you’re familiar with the placement throughout the south of these monuments by the Daughters of the Confederacy in the height of the Jim Crow era. Oxford must lead the way and show Mississippi and the nation that a Confederate monument does not define us. Moving the monument would be a monumental positive statement for Lafayette County.
Sincerely,
Greg Mitchell, Oxford resident and graduate of the University of Mississippi
(This letter was originally sent as an email to Supervisor Gillespie in July 2020)