{"id":85828,"date":"2025-07-23T11:52:17","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T11:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/85828\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T11:52:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T11:52:17","slug":"once-known-as-confederate-park-springfield-park-at-center-of-jacksonville-monument-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/85828\/","title":{"rendered":"Once known as \u2018Confederate Park,\u2019 Springfield Park at center of Jacksonville monument debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

SPRINGFIELD, Fla.<\/strong> \u2013 Springfield is one of the oldest and most historic parts of Jacksonville, and as a result, it\u2019s been at the center of one of the most divisive debates in the city\u2019s history: Confederate monuments.<\/p>\n

What was once known as \u201cConfederate Park\u201d is now known simply as Springfield Park.<\/p>\n

It held monuments to the Confederacy for decades, with the most notable and biggest being the women of the Southern Confederacy monument.<\/p>\n

Former Women of the Confederacy statue that once stood at Springfield Park. (Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n

This monument, along with others, sat at the center of a divisive debate that raged for years, many times in City Hall.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want no money\u2026 all these leftists and these groups to tell us we don\u2019t need our monuments\u2026 save history let\u2019s keep our monuments\u2026 let the people vote on it,” said one commenter at a 2023 City Council meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s time for the city to keep its word\u2026 take these reprehensible statues down,” said another.<\/p>\n

By 2023, many statues had been removed.<\/p>\n

In Springfield Park, only the outer structure of the women of the Confederacy monument remains after the statue that sat for 108 years was removed under an order by Mayor Donna Deegan. <\/p>\n

The fight over the monuments continues to this day with a federal lawsuit filed by Earl Johnson Jr., whose father represented Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. <\/p>\n

Earl Johnson Sr., a lawyer who represented Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I see these tributes, be it Confederate Street or parks named after the Confederacy, even counties named after Confederate soldiers\u2026 I\u2019m disgusted by it,” said Johnson.<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, Springfield Park has been chained closed. The City of Jacksonville told News4JAX that the closure was part of an environmental cleanup of the area and not related to the monuments.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPRINGFIELD, Fla. \u2013 Springfield is one of the oldest and most historic parts of Jacksonville, and as a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":85829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[57902,5229,718,57997,3188,723,7310,12013,80,10427,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-85828","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-4-your-neighborhood","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-community","11":"tag-confederate-monuments","12":"tag-fl","13":"tag-florida","14":"tag-jacksonville","15":"tag-morning-show","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-springfield","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114902410437381248","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}