TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida could soon replace a statue of a Confederate general in the U.S. Capitol with one of an African-American educator.
The Senate voted unanimously Wednesday for a bill that would remove the statue of Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith and install a statue of Mary McLeod Bethune.
Republican Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill two years ago calling for Smith’s statue to be replaced. Last year bills choosing a replacement died.
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Congress lets each state send two statues to the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall. Florida’s other statue is of John Gorrie, whose inventions led to modern-day air conditioning.
Bethune founded Daytona Literary and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls in 1904, which eventually became the historically black Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach.
She would be the first African-American woman represented in Statuary Hall.
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