Texas
Related: About this forumA Texas Agency is Defending the Confederacy
In 1908, the Texas chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy built a 15-bedroom mansion in Austins leafy Hyde Park neighborhood, a mile north of the University of Texas. Intended to house elderly wives and widows of Confederate veterans, the Confederate Womans Home, like similar facilities in other southern states, was part of the Daughters mission to create living monuments to the Confederacy, an effort that also involved erecting hundreds of Confederate memorials across the South in the early decades of the 20th century.
The Confederate Womans Home still sits at 3710 Cedar Street, and last summer demonstrators enraged by the murder of George Floyd convened at its doorstep. One protester covered the sites state historical marker with a sign that read, in part, the glorification of a white supremacist group is an insult to our BIPOC neighbors. The buildings current owner, AGE of Central Texas, a nonprofit that provides education to caregivers and the elderly, appeared to get the message. On June 23 it covered the marker with a black plastic bag and attached a notice declaring the organizations commitment to equal rights.
This gesture of solidarity ignited a battleover the status of Confederate markers and monuments, over local control, and over private property rightsthat has played out over the past year in virtual meetings of the Texas Historical Commission, the state agency charged with historic preservation. In response to this incident and other efforts to remove Confederate memorials across the state, the commission has strengthened protections for Texas historical markers and enacted a new rule requiring a majority vote of the 15-person commission before a state antiquities landmark can be retired.
Critics charge that such moves are intended to make it more difficult to remove Confederate memorials. The Confederate Womans Home marker was approved by the Texas Historical Commission in 2012 and erected with permission from AGE. This summer, AGE requested its removal, which the commission unanimously denied at its October meeting; a request by the organization to rescind the buildings landmark status is currently under review. At the same meeting, the commission also rejected a request by the mayor of Lancaster, a small town south of Dallas, to remove a historical marker for a former Confederate arms factory.
Read more: https://www.texasobserver.org/a-texas-agency-is-defending-the-confederacy/
The Jungle 1
(4,552 posts)America does not celebrate treason.
OldBaldy1701E
(4,968 posts)And they won't get it now. Just go down there with some federal troops and arrest the entire lot of them for treason. See if they are so keen on their attempt at posing as 'heritage' lovers then...
The Jungle 1
(4,552 posts)There were plenty of trees. Not hanging Lee and trying to appease the south was a huge mistake.
We have fought a cold civil war ever since. Davis should have also been hung. Many should have been dumped in jail for life.
Appeasement was a failure.
It is absolutely crazy that the south still thinks it just fine to celebrate the treason that caused 620,000 American deaths.
The confederate flag is a death shroud and should be banned by law. America is done appeasing the south.
2naSalit
(86,040 posts)I find that some of America's great national pastimes are bigotry and racism, been that way for centuries. When that tradition is threatened by the rest of us, the bigots get nasty and violent. Seems to be a constant in this country.
Javaman
(62,439 posts)Response to TexasTowelie (Original post)
LetMyPeopleVote This message was self-deleted by its author.