COVINGTON, Ga. — When judges of the state’s appellate court ruled advocates’ case for keeping the 115-year-old Confederate monument in the Covington Square lacked legal standing, one local businessman believes the Newton County government’s case for bringing the statue down doesn’t have “standing” either.

“You hear about ‘concrete damages.’ Well, if we don’t have standing, how do they have the standing to take it down? It’s basically a whim,” said Bill Nash, who has lived and worked in the Newton County area for several decades. “They want to check a box and say ‘that’s what we did.’

“Up until just two or three years ago, the city and the county were proud of that statue,” he added. “It is a memorial to the residents of Newton County who never came home from the war, and the wives and children that suffered when they never return home … You can’t snap your fingers and say that something is totally, instantly offensive. I’m sorry, it’s not … It didn’t bother you before, but now all of the sudden it bothers you?”

Since the Newton County Board of Commissioners voted 3-2 on July 14, 2020 to have the statue removed from the Square, Nash has been at the forefront in support of the Sons of Confederate Veterans’ and Tiffany Humphries’ legal battle to keep the statue upright. He has helped organize rallies and public events to educate residents about the memorial and why they feel it should be left alone.

When commissioners opted to remove the statue, Nash said the county acknowledged no reason for doing so until after the vote. Nash said claims of “direct threats” were not credible because the county and law enforcement agencies had no such threats documented before the July 14 vote. Nash said he realized this after filing an Open Records Request for proof, only to find no “legitimate or provable concrete threats.” 

“They had Facebook pages and screenshots of people saying anything derogatory,” Nash said. “That was their ‘threat’ … No credible threats were recorded … They never mentioned a threat until after the vote.”

Those records were made available to The Covington News to review. 

Only one document, which was a copy of an email sent to former Commissioner Nancy Schulz after the July 14 vote, included a threatening statement toward the statue: “Instead of moving this statue, I urge you to put forth a motion to have public display of its destruction with dynamite.”

There were also photos of messages written in chalk on the sidewalk area surrounding the statue, but none were threatening the monument.

No threats of damage to the statue were documented before July 14.

Regardless of the claimed threats before, Nash said the statue wasn’t in danger now.

“There was no direct threat to damage the statue one year ago, and there’s no threat today, but they still want to forge ahead,” he said.

A decision to remove the statue was within the same timeframe as Rockdale and Henry counties’ action to pull down their own statues. Nash said he felt like Newton County’s decision was knee-jerk reaction.

“They were doing it because other [counties] were doing it, and this was a prime opportunity to do it,” Nash said. “I think what we’re looking at now is they were trying to seize the moment.”

In the commissioners’ “rush” to vote down the statue, Nash said there’s no legal plan for what to do with the statue if removed.

“It concerns me that they just want to pull it down just for the sake of pulling it down,” he said. “Their plan is to simply remove it and hide it away in a storage yard, which would break another aspect of the law. [Chairman Marcello] Banes has stated he would just put it in a lot over here. Well, as of lately, I’ve heard about putting it in a cemetery. The law says specifically it can’t go to a cemetery. The law says it must go to an equally prominent place. There is no equally prominent place in this county.”

County documents received through an Open Records Request confirmed officials reached out to multiple businesses prior to July 14, inquiring about the cost of removing the statue. It appeared Banes had come to terms with Roper & Sons Anything Crane in Covington to disassemble, remove and transport the statue away from the Square to “an undisclosed storage facility” in Newton County for safe-keeping until a new site was ready. The cost was set at $35,000.

Instead of taking the statue away, Nash said he and others have petitioned the idea for commissioners to erect a second, larger statue in the Square to accompany the existing monument.

“We’ve tried to say ‘put up another statue,’” Nash said. “Put up another statue that’s two foot taller … but don’t take away from 115 years of history.

“For us it’s about history,” he continued. “It’s not about — it doesn’t say anything about slavery. That’s a connection other people are making.”

Nash said the monument was erected after women of Newton County held a 14-year penny drive around the turn of the 20th century. 

“It’s for their suffrage, but it’s also for the men and sons that never came home,” he said. “For the people that automatically tie this to slavery, that’s just in their mind.”

Nash believes the statues removal would be detrimental to the businesses on the Square and goes against the chairman’s mantra of “One Newton.”

“Marcello came up with this term ‘One Newton,’ but he’s never going to get there trying to take this statue down,” Nash said. “It’s too important to too many people.

“It’s just wrong,” he continued. “We don’t take from one party to please another party. This is not a Robin Hood thing, you know. Leadership requires that you’re doing something for all people of the county. There’s a lot of people that come to me, including people of color, and tell me point blank that they don’t want that statue gone. They may not say it in front other people, but they say it to me … If you really want ‘One Newton,’ then don’t make decisions like this.”

After the Georgia Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the county, Nash said advocates were currently in the process of either getting an executive order from the Governor’s Office, or taking the case to the state Supreme Court. It’s a process that could take several months, but Nash said it’s a necessary battle.

“You know, we don’t want to fight,” Nash said. “But we have to.”