Lee County supervisors refuse to remove statue

Motion to remove historic statue fails for lack of second

The lee county board of supervisors president lost his bid to move a confederate statue.

Right now it's at the old lee county courthouse.

Wayne hereford talked to board president tommy ivy and joins us live from tupelo with what he says will be his next move.

Supervisor tommy lee ivy is the only african-american member of the lee county board of supervisors.

He made a motion to remove statue from the courthouse lawn but no other board members would second that motion..

Needd to be removed."

Well i did all i can do."

Lee county supervisor tommy lee ivy says he thought it was a great idea to remove the confederate statue from the courthouse lawn.

"i thought it was a good idea to move.

People come to the courthouse buy their tags, etc; and everything.

I don't have no problem with it if we put it in another location.

But at the main courthouse , i have a problem."

As for other board members, district one lee county supervisor phil morgan said in a letter to wtva that "i am not voting to relocate the monument because i am convinced that moving it would not have any effective results in race relations.

Supervisor ivy disagrees.

He said he had a lot of support from local citizens to remove the statue.

"i had a lot of emails , a lot of phone calls, and everything that it needed to be removed."

Supervisor ivy says he is not sure if he will try to remove the statue again.

Reporting live in tupelo wayne hereford wtva nine news.

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