Critics protest move of Confederate statue to Central Florida county

TAVARES, Fla. – Opponents of the relocation of a Confederate statue to a Florida county with a fraught racial past are protesting the decision to house the monument at a tax-supported historical museum at a time when cities around the U.S. have been removing Confederate monuments.

Protesters on Saturday planned to march through downtown Tavares to voice their opposition to bringing the statue to Lake County.

Lake County commissioners last month endorsed moving the statue of Edmund Kirby Smith to the Lake County Historical Society.

The statue of the Confederate general has been in the National Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol.

But it was set to become homeless next year since Florida lawmakers requested that it be replaced with one of African American educator and civil rights advocate Mary McLeod Bethune.