Colored Troop memorial Certificate of Appropriateness delayed until mid-April

The Historic Architectural Review Board in St Augustine voted unanimously this week to wait until its April 16th meeting to decide whether to issue a “certificate of appropriateness” for the proposed construction of a new memorial to U.S. Colored Troops from the local area.

The UF Historic St. Augustine board, managers of state-owned properties under the direction of the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund, are reacting to impassioned pleas from a few vocal advocates for removing both the state-owned Loring monument and the city-owned memorial to Confederate soldiers erected by the Ladies Memorial Association of St Augustine.

Historic City News previously reported that the city commission unanimously decided in 2017 to keep the memorial to 46-local men who served the Confederacy, the city manager, John Regan, and city commissioner Nancy Sikes-Kline, set about on an apparent act of appeasement to purchase four emotionally charged plaques that have been affixed to the base of the historic artifact.

But, in this case, Florida law protects the Loring Monument, because Confederate Gen. William Loring’s ashes are buried beneath it. UF Historic St. Augustine has largely followed the decisions of the City of St. Augustine; and, in this case, it appears they are content to leave the Loring Monument alone.

Their appeasement, if that is what it is, will be to build a new memorial to the U.S. Colored Troops at a different location within Loring Park on the west side of Governor’s House Cultural Center and Museum.

In considering the fate of the application for the Colored Troops memorial, the Historic Architectural Review Board is saying that UF Historic St. Augustine has some homework to do. Specifically, the Board is asking UF Historic St. Augustine to:

• get feedback from people in today’s colored community
• get input from relatives of local men who served in the Colored Troops
• bring back concept drawings that show how the Colored Troops memorial will look

HARB chairman Catherine A. Duncan, A.I.A., a local architect, said, “We all think it’s an important monument.”

HARB member Gaere MacDonald, a Certified General Contractor, said in a published statement that he was glad UF Historic St. Augustine had decided to keep the Loring monument and add the U.S. Colored Troops memorial, saying “I don’t think we should rewrite history.”

HARB member Jon Benoit, president of custom home builder BEHST Builders, Inc., is encouraged that the university will go out into the community for input. “We have to work harder to go find those voices,” he said at the meeting, Thursday, February 20, 2020.

Billy Triay, property manager for UF Historic St. Augustine, said the project content has been developed with the help of historians Susan Parker and Thomas Graham — both of whom worked on the contextualization of the Confederate soldier’s memorial.

The US Colored Troops memorial is expected to be about 8-feet tall with three granite panels. The memorial will list names of local men who served in the Colored Troops.