MONTGOMERY – Attorney General Steve Marshall announced Wednesday that his office has filed suit in Jefferson County Circuit Court against the City of Birmingham and Mayor William Bell for violating state law by constructing barriers to deliberately obscure a historically significant monument in Linn Park.
“In accordance with the law, my office has determined that by affixing tarps and placing plywood around the Linn Park Memorial such that it is hidden from view, the Defendants have ‘altered’ or ‘otherwise disturbed’ the memorial in violation of the letter and spirit of the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act,” said Attorney General Marshall. “The City of Birmingham does not have the right to violate the law and leaves my office with no choice but to file suit.”
The Alabama Memorial Preservation Act, passed by the Alabama Legislature and signed into law in 2017, prohibits the relocation, removal, alteration, renaming, or other disturbance of any architecturally significant building, memorial building, memorial street, or monument located on public property which has been in place for 40 or more years. The Confederate Soldiers & Sailors Monument in Linn Park, which was dedicated in 1905, is older than the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC.
