The City of San Diego removed a plaque honoring Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, from Horton Plaza Park in downtown San Diego on Wednesday, Aug. 16, joining other cities around the country removing statutes and monuments to prominent historic figures of the Civil War era.
A petition, posted on Change.org, asked that the plaque be removed and was directed at San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, Councilman Chris Ward, and President of the California Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Scarlett Stahl.
“San Diegans, especially our African American and other people of color community (sic), as well as the hundreds of thousands of visitors each year, should not be asked to honor our nation’s racist past, nor support the continued racism and hate we see today around the nation,” the petition read.