Alabama Memorial Preservation Act

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall is challenging the removal of a Confederate statue from the Madison County courthouse. 

The lawsuit, issued Friday, argues that the decision to move the statue honoring Confederate soldiers to a Huntsville cemetary violated the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act, passed in 2017. The law was made to protect Confederate monuments. 

An Alabama law that prohibits cities from removing Confederate monuments will remain in effect while the state appeals a judge's ruling that declared the statute constitutional, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled Friday.  

Justices granted the request of Attorney General Steve Marshall to stay a judge's order striking down the law, Marshall's office announced.

"The Supreme Court's stay allows the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act to remain in effect until the Supreme Court resolves this appeal over the act's constitutionality," Marshall said in a statement.

The city of Birmingham says it did not violate state law when it put up a plywood box around a 52-foot-tall Confederate monument in a city park.

In a court filing yesterday, the city disputed the state of Alabama’s claims that Birmingham violated a law prohibiting the removal or alteration of any monuments more than 40 years old.

The state Senate has delayed a vote on a bill that would bar changes to historic or Confederate monuments in Alabama.  

Senators said Thursday that they needed more time to review the measure.

The Alabama Memorial Preservation Act comes amid regional debate over the appropriateness of monuments, street names and buildings with visible links to slavery.

The bill would forbid changes to or the removal of monuments that have been on public land for more than 50 years.