Saturday, January 12, 2019

Texas Republicans along with Democrats take down Confederate plaque in Austin

A Children of the Confederacy plaque with its neo-Confederate propaganda has been taken down from the Capitol building in Austin, Texas. The following is a photo of the plaque that I took.

CLICK ON THE PHOTO TO SEE THE FULL THING.


These are some news stories about it being voted to be taken down.

https://www.texastribune.org/2019/01/11/texas-confederate-plaque-vote-greg-abbott-dan-patrick/

https://www.statesman.com/news/20190111/preservation-board-votes-to-remove-confederate-plaque-at-capitol

I had sent elected officials background information, but I don't know if they paid it any attention.

https://newtknight.blogspot.com/2017/10/letter-to-texas-rep-eric-johnson-about.html#.XDnugFw2qiM

I told them about the Children of the Confederacy essay published a few months later after the plaques installation in the United Daughters of the Confederacy Magazine gleefully describing the massacre of African American soldiers in Reconstruction Florida.

What is important in this story is that both the Republicans and Democrats decided it had to go and among the leadership of both parties they decided it had to go.

It wasn't the story where an African American Democrat was wanting to get rid of the plaque but white Democrats representing whiter districts were making up excuses.

It wasn't the story in which the Democrats wanted to take down the plaque but the Republicans were defending it.

Both Democrats and Republicans wanted the plaque gone, and it didn't take a big campaign to convince them.  Granted that the plaque was in the Capitol building and the plaque had inanitites that were particularly offensive, but still it is a major change in the politics of deConfederating the landscape.

This sends out a message to all of Texas that glorification of the Confederacy is much less acceptable than it was. That doesn't mean that the battle is over,or that all glorification of the Confederacy is going to be rejected.

What it means is that if your town wants to keep its Confederate monument it will be seen as backward and out of touch and aberrant. Industries wanting to locate there will see your Confederate monument and think twice. People thinking of accepting a job offer there will have second thoughts.

As I have pointed out before one removal leads to another.

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