Exclusive — South Carolina Group Sues Charleston City School Board for Statue Removals

A Charleston, South Carolina, group aiming to preserve southern United States history is suing the local government and school board to return statues of Vice President John C. Calhoun and Confederate General Robert E. Lee to their original displays after they were removed by leftists during the 2020-2021 Black Lives Matter movement.

Brett Barry, president of the American Heritage Association (AHA), gave Breitbart News Saturday host Matthew Boyle the run-down of why the two statues are important, and why they should be reinstated:

“I moved to Charleston in 2015, largely because it was a town that truly respected and remembered its history. But then, in 2020, it took a complete change,” Barry explained. “We had former Mayor [John] Tecklenburg in office — and when the woke mobs started rioting, he actually became an extension of that riot… The rioters were calling for the removal of the John C. Calhoun monument, but they couldn’t take it down, so he ordered it removed.”

The 115-foot tall monument, which stood at the center of Marion Square in Downtown Charleston since the late 1800s, was removed after a unanimous vote by the Charleston City Council, about a month after the death of George Floyd. 

“And not only did he remove the statue, but then he had the 130 year old granite base and column actually jackhammered into rubble,” Barry said of the Democrat ex-mayor.

Noting that Calhoun was a member of the “Great Triumvirate” in the U.S. Senate, Barry pointed out that he was a “part of all the major policy debates” who “laid a lot of the groundwork for some of the early philosophical debates over the U.S. Constitution.”

Calhoun, who served as vice president under both President John Quincy Adams and President Andrew Jackson, is a controversial historical figure due to his strong advocacy for the enslavement of black people in the Confederate States.

In a February 6, 1837 speech, Calhoun argued, “Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually” once enslaved by white people.

The speech, made five years after the end of his vice presidency, went on to call slavery a “positive good” because it was the best way for “two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual” to coexist in one land. 

While the bust of the Calhoun statue was removed, not destroyed, it has sat in an “undisclosed warehouse” for the last five years, the Post and Courier reported.

“So the statue still remains, but he destroyed the base. That’s really how our organization got started — because we needed somebody to stand in the void,” Barry continued. “And a lot of people were running for the hills at the time — from the wokeism movement. So we launched a lawsuit about three years ago that has been ongoing, suing the city [over] the removal.”

A new mayor, William S. Cogswell Jr., became Charleston’s first Republican leader since 1877 in 2023.

With Cogswell in office, Barry said, “We are hopefully nearing the end of settlement negotiations. Discussions have been very positive, and our goal is pretty simple.”

“We want to rebuild the base and re-erect the monument to U.S. Vice President John C. Calhoun.”

A similar legal battle is playing out over the 2021 removal of the Robert E. Lee memorial from Charleston School of Math and Science, with the AHA also launching a lawsuit against the Charleston County School Board.

According to Barry, the statue garnered no problems over the 70 years it sat outside the school. 

When his group first raised the issue, he said South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson (R) argued that the school violated the state’s monument protection legislation, but he “never took any action and the school board never acted to put it back up.”

“So the statute of limitations was about to run out, so we quickly raised some money from local residents and filed our own lawsuit,” Barry explained. “But the school board has really turned out to be a bunch of turncoats, and it’s very unfortunate.”

The AHA president also stated that President Donald Trump “changed the entire game” when it comes to resurrecting canceled monuments.

“I hope more Republicans follow suit. He had really led the charge. I mean, when they were looking to take down the Robert E. Lee monument in Virginia, I think he was really the only voice out there, so he really went out on a limb,” he said. “And we cannot thank him enough for his leadership. And we’re hoping that that will create some more momentum.”

Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.