A Stone Confederate Flag Flies Over the Miami City Cemetery

Sitting in a prominent location at the center of the Miami City Cemetery, final resting place to many major early Miamians like Julia Tuttle and the Burdines family, is a stone monument to Confederate soldiers that fought in the Civil War and moved to Miami later in life, complete with a Confederate flag in relief and the words "Our Heroes." The flag is on the rear panel of the monument that, although little remembered today, would have been well known in its day, a time when Miami was a much more Southern and racist town.

Originally commissioned by United Daughters of the Confederacy, it was moved from its spot on the grounds of the Dade County Courthouse in 1927 where it was the base of a 24 foot tall obelisk, and installed in the second most important spot in the cemetery. (Julia Tuttle's grave is in the first) 66 Confederate veterans are buried in the cemetery, along with 27 Union vets. By now, the marker is not just a memorial to one group of people that fought to continue the enslavement another like the Confederate flags still flying above certain Southern state capitals, but an historic artifact in itself and a reminder of racism's deep existence in this country. Its preservation, just like that of Auschwitz or of slave cabins in the Deep South, is a reminder of what not to do, lest we forget it.

· Miami has a little known Confederate monument [Rise Miami News]
· Our Heroes, Confederate Circle [Florida Public Archeology Network]
· Miami City Cemetery coverage [Curbed Miami]