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Mobile to pay fine, move Confederate statue permanently

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall speaks during a press conference on COVID-19 with Gov. Kay Ivey in April 2020. GOVERNOR's OFFICE/HAL YEAGER

The City of Mobile will pay $25,000 to move a 120-year-old statue of Admiral Raphael Semmes, an officer in the Confederate Navy during the Civil War, to the city museum. 

The agreement to pay the fine was announced by Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office on Monday afternoon, and came after Marshall notified the city that he determined it to be in violation of the state’s Memorial Preservation Act. 

“On June 4, the City of Mobile removed a 120-year-old statue of Admiral Raphael Semmes from public property within the city,” Marshall said. “Now that the City has acknowledged its intent to remove the monument permanently, the facts surrounding the removal and a plain reading of the law led me to determine that the Act was violated. After being notified of that determination, the City has agreed to pay the required fine of $25,000 without a court order.”

Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson announced on Sunday that he ordered the statue of Semmes moved from a storage facility to the History Museum of Mobile, where it would reside permanently. 

Josh Moon is an investigative reporter and featured columnist at the Alabama Political Reporter with years of political reporting experience in Alabama. You can email him at jmoon@alreporter.com or follow him on Twitter.

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