BENTONVILLE (KFSM) -- Violence in Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend has led to many confederate statues across the country to be taken down.
There are now dueling petitions about whether to keep or move the confederate statue on the Bentonville square.
The first petition was started by Ozark Indivisible and calls for the confederate soldier memorial statue on the Bentonville square to be removed.
The second petition is to keep the monument where it has been since the early 1900's.
Courtney Cristain Hoggarth-Hubbard started the petition to leave the memorial where it is and said it's a part of her family's heritage.
“This to me is a birthright as well as the fact that it needs to be standing for future generations so that they can learn from it, instead of trying to erase and restart because if you erase the past then you are doomed to repeat it in the future,” she said.
David Mckelvain signed the petition to remove the monument, but he said there first needs to be dialogue on both sides.
He said if the conscience is to move the monument then he is in favor but if that's not the case - he has a solution.
“The solution is to add, add materials, add education to the plaques, possibly even a recorded message played beside the statue that can give a full history,” he said.
In 1996, Benton County gave notice to the united daughters of the confederacy that the City of Bentonville would be taking over maintaining the square including the monument representing James H. Berry.
“There is also a theory in property law that says if you take care of a property, if you use a property for a certain amount of time it becomes yours. So I think the fact they are using the argument that they don`t own it or they are trying to use that is a way of evading making a difficult moral discussion,” U of A Professor of Law Steve Clowney said.
James H. Berry was a civil war officer and is the only Arkansas governor from Bentonville. He also served as a legislator and an attorney.