Seeking Information about Woodmen of the World Monument in Augusta, GA, USA

I've created this blog to share information about a monument in Augusta, GA, United States that puzzles me. If you can shed some light on the monument, I'd appreciate it. My contact information is in the right margin.

On the west side of the monument, there are the names of Richmond County Residents killed in WW I. The WW I list has a category named 'Colored', and the names are in alphabetical order in each category. In the east facing side, the names of Richmond County residents killed in WW II are in alphabetical order, this time without a racial category.

There is no date on the monument, although articles in the Augusta Chronicle date its commemoration to May 30, 1954. Woodlawn Camp No 55 of the Woodmen of the World is the organization which erected it, according to an inscription in the base of the monument.

The monument is located in the median of Greene St, near the intersection with 10th St.

This is the list of resources that I've gathered:

• Pictures I took on May 24, 2007
• Gordon band, brass to lead dedication of war dead shaft, Augusta Chronicle, May 29, 1954
• WOW Camp Dedicates Monument to Richmond County War Dead, Augusta Chronicle, June 1, 1954
• NA holds Memorial Day services, Augusta Chronicle, May 30, 1972
• Heart, Spirit and Soul, Augusta Chronicle, May 31, 1972
• Woodmen honor U.S. veterans, Augusta Chronicle, March 16, 2007
  
• Monument had a definite beginning date, Augusta Chronicle, March 18, 2007

Dr. Russell K. Brown of Grovetown, GA, the author of the March 18, 2007 letter to the editor above, helped me the most by finding the 1954 and 1972 references to the monument in the Augusta Chronicle.

These are the most interesting questions I can think of regarding this monument:

1. Assuming the monument was created at one time, why would segregation be practiced for WW I and not WW II?
2. In the years since, including as recently as 2007 when the bench monument was erected, why has the city of Augusta or Woodmen of the World never done anything to change this monument or at least note somehow that the attitude of Augusta has changed since this monument's erection?

I would by lying if I claimed that I did not have an agenda for asking these questions. What is the appropriate policy for cities across our region which have monuments celebrating segregationists and the Confederacy?

• Slant Eye for the Round Eye's Take on Benjamin Ryan Tillman's Statue
• Notice that the South Carolina State Government web site does not mention Benjamin Ryan Tillman's Oppression of African-Americans
• Text of Proposed Legislation in South Carolina General Assembly Enjoining Removal of Tillman's Statue
• Georgia State Capitol Building
• Professor Bruce E. Baker of the University of London, the author of What Reconstruction Meant (University of Virginia Press, 2007), alerted me in private correspondence to the existence of the McKie Meriwether monument in North Augusta. Check out its entry in the Historical Markers Database.

Just to put my $0.02 in, I think these public monuments need to be changed to acknowledge in situ that we in Georgia and South Carolina no longer accept some of the actions and beliefs of our predecessors. We don't need to make big moral judgments on (most of) them, but so many contemporary Georgians and South Carolinians have no idea the extent to which our states were built on slavery and segregation.

And, yes, the fact that our environments are polluted, jails are overcrowded and schools are underperforming is more important than these monuments. But can't we fix these as well?

And let me make sure that I make clear that I don't want to embarrass the Woodmen of the World folks at all. If each person really knew our own ancestors' history, there's probably many things of which we would all be ashamed. And if we were honest, we've all done things in our lives of which we should be ashamed. And if we were really honest, then we've done something today of which we should be ashamed. So, seriously, I am not busting on the Woodmen.

March 16, 2011: There's a small blurb about this monument in a local publication, p. 32.