MACON, Ga. — A Macon man has filed a lawsuit to stop the city from moving a Confederate statue away from a downtown intersection.
Last week, the Bibb County commission agreed to move the statue away from Cotton Avenue and Second Street to a park near Rose Hill Cemetery.
They said it would be part of a plan to improve some downtown streets, but Martin Bell filed the lawsuit Monday night in Bibb County Superior Court.
He says the move would violate his rights.
The lawsuit also argues that the county allowed "an unruly mob of protestors to surround the statue with murals and graffiti like 'Losers Don't get Trophies.'"
He is referring to the temporary 'Block the Hate' art installation that was approved by county leaders after the memorial was vandalized.
Bell wants a judge to stop the move, and pay him damages.
Walker Chandler, Bell’s lawyer, told 13WMAZ that the intent of this lawsuit is to keep the monuments from being moved from “places of honor” and “stuck out near the cemetery.”
Chandler says his client put $498 into lighting around the “Soldier Monument," which is the Confederate memorial on Cotton Avenue.
The suit says the city of Macon installed the lights, but has allowed them to be disconnected and the display of the monument thereby downgraded.
It names Mayor Robert Robert Reichert and the five commissioners who voted to move the statue.
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