Grizzlies Guard Ja Morant Calls For Confederate Statue In Kentucky To Be Removed

In a letter sent to a local judge, rookie Grizzlies guard Ja Morant called for a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee to be taken down in Murray, Kentucky. Morant spent two years in Murray, playing at Murray State before entering the NBA Draft last June.

“As a young Black man, I cannot express enough how disturbing and oppressive it is to know the city still honors a Confederate war general defending white supremacy and hatred,” Morant said in a letter to Calloway County judge Kenneth C. Imes dated Thursday, June 11. “Given recent events and the Black Lives Matter movement, it’s necessary to act now. We can’t change the culture of racism unless we change the celebration of racism. Please help us take a stand and remove this symbol of hatred and oppression.”

The letter can be read in full below:

The statue was put up in 1917 to honor soldiers from Murray who fought for the Confederacy, which Lee commanded, during the Civil War.

In addition to Morant, the English and Philosophy departments at Murray State called for the statue to be taken down. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, a Democrat elected in 2019, also called for it to be taken down. The Murray City Council also passed a resolution to explore taking the statue down.

Calls for statues honoring the Confederacy to be removed have been renewed in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

“We must do better,” councilman Danny Hudspeth, who initiated the judgement per the Murray Ledger. “‘Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.’ This was said in the ‘60s, yet here we are some 60 years later, and these words still ring true today.”

“So, after many days and weeks and months and years and decades of talking about and debating the issue of this statue, an object that divides and offends, I would like to be the one to make a motion that you form a committee to remove that statue from the court square and you would send it to the fiscal court. The time is now to do the right things. The time is now.”