Within the heart of Brandon, a confederate statue has stood proud for over 117 years. Despite the statue’s intention of remembrance, Brandon fans have started to discuss the idea of a “Statue Curse.”
In the fall of 2021, Brandon Highschool’s football team played for Mississippi’s Football State Championship. Sadly, Brandon Bulldogs were defeated. In the city’s FaceBook groups- Let’s Talk Brandon, Brandon 042 Uncensored, Let’s Talk Rankin County- many people poked and prodded about the confederate statue’s curse over our athletics. Despite the major loss, we found ourselves there the next year (2022) playing for the championship once more. Originally a joke, people now believe the statue may actually be cursed as our football team suffered at South State and our basketball team lost at State in their 2023-2024 season.
The discussion of the statue’s removal came back into circulation, but removing the Confederate Statue is not as easy as it may sound.
During the Civil War in 1861, General Sherman led the Union Army through Jackson to Vicksburg. Brandon was burned in an attempt to damage the South’s military supply lines and damage civilian morale. Mississippi lost a total of 8,000 loses during the Civil War. In 1907, the United Daughters of Confederacy joined together in an attempt to honor the lives lost, placing a Confederate Statue in the middle of Brandon. The statue is placed where General Sherman once stacked his soldier’s arms during the war.
Although the statue was placed to remember Mississippi’s fallen soldiers, some people have found a deeper, more painful, meaning beneath the statue: the statue was placed to deter African Americans from going to the Courthouse to exercise their voting rights. Sadly, researchers who have studied the connection between confederate monuments and voting rates post-Civil War have found that predominantly black areas had a decrease in voting turnout after the rise of these statues. At the time, the Democratic party was presumed as pro-slavery and racist. Researchers witnessed the climb of voting for the Democratic party in the South after statues were erected. Finding the connection between racism and statues have led to people today begging for the statue to be rightly removed.
In August of 2020, opinions clashed as our own people of Brandon fought over the statue. As the two sides clashed, confederate flags were waved around as insults rather than remembrance. At one point, a flag was waved in front of someone’s face, causing the tension to rise, Brandon’s Deputy Department had to step in.
Dr. Ava Harvey asked after the conflict that the confederate statue be moved to Brandon’s cemetery, where two former governors rest. After having discussions with Brandon athletes, they do not credit the statue from stopping them in any achievements; many people had not even heard of the curse. There is no denying that Brandon’s Confederate Statue has history written all over it. Although removing the statue will not erase our past, it has the potential to honor our future.
