The Alabama senate passed a bill Friday which would prevent the changing of the names of Confederate memorials and removing of historic Confederate monuments.
The bill “would prohibit the relocation, removal, alteration, renaming, or other disturbance of any architecturally significant building, memorial building, memorial street, or monument that has stood on public property for 40 or more years,” reads the text of the bill, reported Yahoo News.
Sen. Gerald Allen, a Republican sponsor of the bill, blasted what he perceived as a “wave of political correctness” assailing monuments dedicated to people who, despite having flaws, were important to history.
“You say we are protecting history,” said Sen. Hank Sanders, a Democrat African American, according to Yahoo! News. “We are not protecting history. We are protecting monuments that represent oppression to a large part of the people in the state of Alabama.”
“Are you good with the sanitizing of history as we are seeing in New Orleans?” inquired Rep. Mack Butler, a Republican lawmaker, to which the bill’s detractors responded that the decision to remove or rename Confederate memorials should fall to smaller governments within the state.
The bill awaits approval by Kay Ivey, Alabama’s governor.
Alabama’s decision comes on the same day as New Orleans removed its last of four Confederate statues.
The Daily Caller News Foundation reached out to Sens. Allen and Sanders, as well as the Alabama legislature, but received no comment in time for publication.
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