Legal battle over Franklin Confederate statue shows the power of place | Opinion

• Jordan Brasher is a doctoral candidate and Derek Alderman is a professor at University of Tennessee.

Franklin’s town square is the setting of a legal standoff between city officials and the United Daughters of the Confederacy, one of the South’s oldest, most powerful and influential heritage preservation organizations.

The UDC has sued to stop the installation of historical markers in the downtown square that would retell the nation’s and the county’s history of race relations and, in particular, the struggles and contributions of African-Americans. 

The UDC claims to have legal ownership over Franklin’s square, although city authorities have asked for proof along with reasons for opposing the African American history memorials.

Quite likely, the proposed plaques are seen as a direct challenge to “Chip,” the Confederate monument that has stood in the square since its installment by the UDC in 1899.

We need a holistic view of what happened in Franklin

Whether the UDC claim to the land is legally binding or not, there is something else going on here: they are controlling the historical narrative about the past through the power of place.

UDC lawyer Doug Jones has said that he and the UDC support telling a fuller story, but that it has to be on their terms – presumably through their wording, interpretation and preference of location – because the square is their property.

Additionally, Jones said that they prefer “that [any] markers [in the square] stick to telling about the Battle of Franklin.”

Why would an organization that is allegedly in the business of historic preservation be opposed to the placement of new historic markers on the town square?

This is where our training in cultural geography helps us understand the political clashes over Confederate memory. We study the power of place in commemorative conflicts.

Allow African American Franklin residents to have their place in history

Research in cultural geography suggests that where monuments or historical information are placed within a city’s landscape say as much about whose histories and contributions matter as they do about what happened historically.

Some places have more power than others, which is why you often find Confederate monuments erected by the UDC located on courthouse lawns, the local seats of government power or in the centrally-located town square. It might also be why the UDC opposes new historical markers juxtaposed near “Chip”.

The UDC’s lawyer suggested that they only want markers that discuss the Battle of Franklin to be placed on the city square, and argued that markers telling a fuller story of the city’s African-American history should be placed elsewhere.

But, shouldn’t historical markers about Franklin’s “race riot” and Market House, part of the proposed project, also have a place on the town square, given that the so-called riot happened on the square itself and the Market House was also located there? Do they not deserve an equal place – equal power, prominence and recognition – in narrating Williamson County’s history?

The city of Franklin – like cities all across the South – is long overdue for public historical interpretive content that elevates the experiences of African-Americans by giving them the geographic and social prominence and the political importance they deserve on the square.

Jordan P. Brasher is a doctoral candidate and Derek H. Alderman is a professor at University of Tennessee.