A push to remove Confederate relics from the Fifth Street Bridge is gaining steam. Should the Augusta Commission approve the changes, however, opponents promise a fight.
Commissioner Ben Hasan called to rename the bridge – long marked the Jefferson Davis Memorial Bridge – the Freedom Bridge. His motion had support from all four members of Augusta’s Environmental Services committee.
“Freedom is something we all aspire to have, no matter what station we have in life,” Hasan said.
The city reopened the 1932 bridge last month as a pedestrian-only attraction following an $11 million-plus makeover. Cleaned and restored were two marble sections denoting the Jefferson Davis Memorial Bridge and four brass plaques at each entrance detailing Davis’ military service and role as the only president of the Confederate States of America.
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“Anything that signifies Jefferson Davis, we remove it off the bridge,” Hasan said is integral to renaming the bridge.
Commissioner Catherine Smith McKnight voted in favor, then said she was unsure the motion would pass the full commission next week, when it needs six votes. McKnight, who added she opposed removing the signs, along with Brandon Garrett, Jordan Johnson and Hasan voted yes. Johnson has long voiced support for removing Confederate landmarks and relics from all Augusta public places.
Russ Gambill, president of Save the Monuments of Augusta, said the group is fine with the name change – it’s already called the Fifth Street Bridge on many signs and maps – but will vigorously oppose removing the signs.
“I’ve got no problem with them renaming the bridge — it’s just removing the plaques that’s in violation of state law,” Gambill said.
Georgia Code 50-3-1 bans altering any publicly owned memorial or other display honoring military service either for the United States or the Confederate States.
Gambill said the group did not want to embroil the city in costly litigation but preferred to reach “consensus” on ways to leave the signs intact.
“Put interpretive plaques up, get with the historical society,” he said. “There should be a dialogue before some kind of rash decision gets made.”
Despite the law, several local Georgia governments have removed Confederate names, monuments and markers from public facilities, and a handful have been sued for it.
Just Tuesday, the Supreme Court of Georgia upheld the dismissal of lawsuits filed by Sons of Confederate Veterans groups again Henry County and Newton County, saying the groups lacked standing to sue. The court reversed the dismissal of a case filed by a Newton County resident, however, saying she did have standing to sue.
Formerly an interstate link on the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway, the bridge was part of a nationwide effort by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to create a coast-to-coast road honoring Davis. The route never obtained a unique federal highway number due to its disjointed sections and overlap with other federal routes.
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The Augusta road and bridge came about during the development of the federal highway system and at a time in the 1920s when some groups sought to celebrate the Confederate heroes of the Civil War half a century earlier.
But only two decades after the Davis bridge opened, it was sidelined by another bridge now connecting the Jefferson Davis Highway with what’s now the Gordon Highway, named for Confederate General John Brown Gordon.
The Department of Defense recently renamed Fort Gordon, at the other end of the highway, for President Dwight Eisenhower, the American general who commanded forces in Europe against the Nazis during World War II and frequented Augusta National Golf Club.
Removing all signage and monuments connected to the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway was among the recommendations made by a mayor’s office task force in 2020. To date, the commission has taken no action on any of the recommendations.
Susan McCord is a staff writer with The Augusta Press. Reach her at susan@theaugustapress.com.
