7. Push to defund Confederate Park
- Alabama House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels (D-Huntsville) is now calling for the Confederate Memorial Park in Chilton County to stop receiving funds from tax money, which Daniels has said is “not appropriate.”
- The park, owned by the Alabama Historical Commission, receives roughly $600,000 per year to be maintained. Daniels said that there are better things this money “could go than to fund something that brings a lot of pain back to Alabamians.”
6. Confederate statue in Mobile headed to a museum
- The Confederate Adm. Raphael Semmes statue in Mobile was removed on June 5, and now Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson has announced that the statue is being relocated to the History Museum of Mobile permanently.
- Stimpson said that moving the statue is “the right thing to do for our community moving forward,” and added, “The values represented by this monument a century ago are not the values of Mobile in 2020.” Stimpson also explained that this decision was made through “research by a team of lawyers, historians, and city officials.”
5. No one is going to defund the police
- U.S. Representative Jim Clyburn (D-SC) has said that he’s going to push for “reimagining” of law enforcement and Congress won’t move to defund police departments.
- Clyburn went on to say that “nobody is going to defund the police,” despite outcry from the public for doing just that. He added that we have to make sure that the role police play “is one that meets the times, one that responds to these communities that they operate in.”
4. Racist graffiti found in Huntsville
- Over the weekend, an overpass at Memorial Parkway and Drake Avenue in Huntsville were spray painted black with swastikas and “black lives don’t matter.”
- Other areas of the overpass were tagged with “white rights matter” and “f—king n——r” with more swastikas. The graffiti was removed promptly and the Huntsville Police Department is investigating the incident.
3. Rayshard Brooks is not George Floyd
- In Atlanta, Rayshard Brooks was shot and killed during an encounter with the police, and U.S. Senator Tom Scott (R-SC) said that this situation shows a further need for change in police departments throughout the country.
- Scott said that the situation with Brooks is “a far less clear one” than the situation with George Floyd in Minneapolis. He continued, “One of the challenges in these split-second decisions is the need for more training, that’s why the de-escalation aspect is so important.”
2. Sessions says Jones will bow before the “woke mob”
- After U.S. Senator Doug Jones (D-AL) voted to rename all military installation, former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said that if Jones and his “woke mob” had their way they would raze the Jefferson and Washington Memorials.
- On Twitter, Jones’ millennial social media team told Sessions to “delete your account” before baselessly declaring that a man that prosecuted members of the Ku Klux Klan and bankrupted them that it is “tough for you to be on the right side of history when it comes to the Confederacy.”
1. Multiple days of record highs
- Alabama gained 1,014 coronavirus cases yesterday, which is the largest amount of cases found in one day since the virus tracking started in the state.
- Daily cases have been increasing across the country since states have reopened, but the number of deaths continues to decline. In fact, Sunday’s deaths were the lowest daily total since March 26.
