The statue of Henry W. Grady in downtown Atlanta could soon get a new plaque that provides more context about the former newspaper editor’s beliefs.
The Atlanta City Council passed a measure Monday requesting that the city’s Urban Design Commission provide a “historical contextualization” of the statue of Grady at 50 Marietta Street.
Grady, who died in 1889, was a managing editor and part owner of The Atlanta Constitution. While promoting his vision for industrialization in the “New South,” Grady said that “the white race is the superior race.”
“The contextualization will allow for there to be more information shared about the parts of his life that are not controversial, but also to allow for there to be a distancing from the city’s perspective” of beliefs Grady held that espoused racism and white supremacy, said Councilwoman Natalyn Archibong, who sponsored the resolution, during a council committee meeting last week.
The statue was built in 1891, shortly after his death, at the corner of Marietta and Forsyth streets. Grady’s legacy has come under scrutiny over the years. In 2019, several Georgia State University student groups signed an editorial published by its student newspaper calling for the removal and relocation of the statue.
While moving the statue is prohibited under state law, the students said the city should add a plaque beneath the monument “clarifying who he was and what he believed.”
The Atlanta Public Schools board voted in December to rename Grady High School as Midtown High School, part of a broader APS effort to remove names of historical figures who had racist views from district buildings.
Grady’s name remains on other prominent locations in Georgia including Grady Memorial Hospital and the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.
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