A South Carolina Senate panel has advanced a bill that would expand protections for public memorials under a section of state law commonly known as the Heritage Act.
The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Danny Verdin, R-Laurens, and backed by 29 other Republican senators, would prohibit the removal, relocation, or alteration of any public monument or memorial in the state without General Assembly approval. It would also prevent the placement of interpretive plaques that provide additional historical context.
Republican senators on the Finance subcommittee, chaired by Verdin, voted with minimal discussion to send the bill to the full Senate Finance Committee. The two Democrats on the panel did not vote. A companion bill in the House has not yet received a hearing.
The South Carolina Association of Counties and the Municipal Association of South Carolina opposed the measure, citing concerns about limiting local authority. The American Heritage Association, a group formed in 2018 to advocate for the preservation of historical monuments, was the only organization to testify in support.
State law has since 2000 required a two-thirds vote by the General Assembly to alter or remove certain publicly owned monuments related to wars, African American or Native American history. However, legal and political debates have tested the law’s limits in recent years.
In 2020, the Charleston City Council voted to remove a statue of John C. Calhoun that had stood in Marion Square for 124 years. The vote followed nationwide protests after the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota. The city argued the statue was not on publicly owned land and did not fall under the law’s protections.
Attorney General Alan Wilson issued an opinion that same month agreeing the Calhoun statue was not covered under existing law, noting it did not commemorate a war or Native American or African American history. A state judge later ruled only the attorney general could enforce the law.
The American Heritage Association, which had sued Charleston on behalf of Calhoun’s descendants, spent $250,000 on legal efforts but said its cases were dismissed on procedural grounds. In response, the group began lobbying for changes to the law that would allow private groups to sue and expand the scope of protected monuments.
Under the proposed legislation, unauthorized removal or alteration of a protected monument could result in legal penalties, including restitution. The state could also withhold certain tax funds from local governments found in violation.
A settlement reached in July resolved the Calhoun statue dispute. The city transferred the statue to a newly formed nonprofit that intends to relocate it outside Charleston’s city limits.
Other recent monument actions across the state include:
- Relocation of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee near Marion Square.
- Removal of a highway marker by the Charleston County School District in 2021, followed by litigation that was later settled.
- Removal of a Christopher Columbus statue in Columbia in 2020 after it was vandalized.
- Renaming of a Charleston auditorium that had previously honored Christopher Memminger, a former Confederate official.
- Installation of plaques in North Augusta explaining the context of a monument to Thomas McKie Meriwether, who died in the 1876 Hamburg Massacre.
Brett Barry of the American Heritage Association told lawmakers that interpretive plaques near some monuments diminish their meaning. “By physically altering these sites with purported modern clarifications, we effectively hijack the original intent,” Barry said.
The proposed legislation would ban such additions, according to its supporters, to preserve original historical narratives.
