Mayor Lyda Krewson says she's "committed" to removing a Confederate monument from Forest Park, but says the process will be expensive.
In order to help the statue go down, Treasurer Tishaura Jones has started a GoFundMe account to raise $25,000.
Wednesday morning, Jones took to Twitter asking her followers if they'd contribute to a GoFundMe account to remove the statue. After several of her followers replied saying yes, she started the fund.
If I started a @gofundme to take down the Confederate Statue in Forest Park, would you contribute?
— Tishaura O. Jones (@tishaura) May 17, 2017
Within an hour, the account had raised more than $600.
Jones released a statement saying she believes the monument has no place in Forest Park and should have been removed years ago. She says she decided to start the campaign after the city cited a lack of funds for not removing the monument.
The decision to remove the statue has been controversial, with some St. Louisans saying the statue pays homage to their family history.
Bill Hannagan, who grew up along Lindell Boulevard says his great grandfather was on the City Council that set aside the place for the Confederate monument.
"This is a case of a space being set aside in a beautiful park for the descendants of the Confederates to honor the war dead,” he said.
Others say the statue represents a part of American history they'd rather not honor.
"It speaks to a time and place that was not good for this country but it also at the same time has to give the proper recognition to the folks who lost their lives," said Adolphus Pruitt, president of the St. Louis NAACP.
He says the statue is a reminder of a toxic time and place in American history.
The mayor's office says it's looking at a variety of different options to remove the statue, each of which carries a different price tag.
