African American leader calls Cape mayor's Confederate monument remarks 'insensitive'

The Rev. William Bird Jr., pastor of Cape Girardeau’s Greater Dimensions Ministries, called Mayor Bob Fox’s remarks this week about the downtown Confederate States of America monument in Ivers Square “insensitive.”

Bird, also president of the Pastoral Assembly of Cape Girardeau (PAC), said he has received text messages from members of the community indicating displeasure with Fox’s comments.

In a June 30 interview, Fox, mayor since 2018, told the Southeast Missourian “the monument is not the problem,” adding, “We don’t need to cower to radicals.”

Bird, who plans to attend Monday’s meeting of Cape Girardeau City Council where the fate of the 14 1/2-foot-tall white slab marker will be discussed, said he would have preferred if the mayor had deferred comment until council meets.

“With all that is going on around us, this could have been handled differently,” Bird said.

PAC was formed Jan. 19 during a Martin Luther King Jr. service in Cape Girardeau with the goal of unifying the city’s African American faith communities.

Fox does not support the unanimous recommendation of the city’s Historical Preservation Commission to remove and store the C.S.A. marker, saying he was “shocked” at the panel’s 8-0 vote June 23.

The mayor had asked the commission to look into the matter and to report its findings to the City Council.

The 12 1/2 ton monument was placed on Morgan Oak Street near the Mississippi River in 1931, a gift by a group called the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

The marker was moved to what is now known as Ivers Square in 1995, next to the former Common Pleas Courthouse. The building is to be the site of Cape Girardeau’s new City Hall and construction work is underway.

“It is imperative that we be mindful and sensitive to the statements we make,” Bird said, “because we will all be held accountable by what we say and what we do.”

Bird said Cape Girardeau is fortunate not to have experienced the level of friction and tension seen in other cities, noting the multiple peaceful protests at Freedom Corner in Capaha Park since the death of George Floyd on May 25 in Minneapolis while in police custody.

The local Confederate States of America monument is seen Monday as a security sign hangs on a fence surrounding the Cape Girardeau City Hall construction site.BEN MATTHEWS ~ bmatthews@semissourian.com, file