A statue honoring John Lewis replaces former Confederate monument in Georgia

(CNN) — A statue honoring civil rights hero and US Congressman John Lewis was unveiled Saturday outside of Atlanta, replacing a Confederate monument that had stood there for more than a century.

Renowned Jamaican sculptor Basil Watson created the statue, coined the John Lewis Memorial. It was installed August 16 in Decatur Square in front of the Historic Decatur Courthouse.

The statue stands 12 feet tall atop a granite pedestal and depicts Lewis with his hands over his heart, a gesture he frequently used to express his love for others.

A civil rights icon

A hero and prominent leader of the Civil Rights Movement, Lewis was a lifelong Democrat who championed social issues and equality.

Lewis was one of the original Freedom Riders who rode segregated buses in the 1960s to protest racial segregation in the South. He served as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and was one of the “Big Six” civil rights leaders who organized the March on Washington, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his historic “I Have a Dream” speech.

In 1965, Lewis was brutally beaten by police and state troopers in Alabama while leading hundreds of peaceful civil rights marchers in the first Selma to Montgomery march, in what became known as “Bloody Sunday.”

Lewis served as a US representative for Georgia’s 5th Congressional District from 1987 until his death in 2020. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011 by President Barack Obama for his lifelong dedication to civil rights and equality.

Replacing a symbol of division

A 30-foot Confederate obelisk erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1908 previously stood in Decatur Square for more than 110 years.

It featured text inscriptions on all four sides of its base, celebrating the ideals of the Confederacy. The inscriptions claimed those who erected the monument were bearing witness to the future, unaware it would one day be torn down, replaced by a new symbol of peace and progress.

The obelisk came under national scrutiny as a symbol of division during the 2020 racial reckoning of summer protests following the murder of George Floyd.

A Georgia judge ordered the removal of the obelisk in June 2020 on the grounds it constituted a public nuisance as a focal point of protests and vandalism. Crowds cheered as a construction crew tore down the statue later that month.

“A monument that represented bigotry, division and hatred will be replaced, by a monument to a man who loved, who cherished this nation and brought all people of all colors together,” DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond said in 2022, noting the removal of the Confederate monument in 2020 was “one of the proudest moments” of his tenure.

CNN’s Devon M. Sayers contributed to this report.

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