Echoes of the Confederacy: How Austin Continues to Honor the Lost Cause
By Ayaan Shah, Sierra Sun, and Campbell West, JCamp 2024 — Austin
Five bronze figures stand atop a stone block, four on each corner and one on a central pedestal above the rest. Alongside similar monuments honoring volunteer firemen, scenes from Tejano ranch life, and Korean War veterans, it doesn’t look out of place. Most people walk past the statue, taking photos of the Texas State Capitol Building in the background instead. Others take pictures of the statue itself. Some look up, surprised as they read the monument’s inscription:
“CONFEDERATE DEAD: DIED FOR STATE RIGHTS GUARANTEED UNDER THE CONSTITUTION.”
“States’ rights to what?” Tyler Chrren of Portland, Maine asked, staring at the statue. “You have people who say [the Civil War] was against big, bad government — but then the question is ‘well, what really started it?’” said Chrren, 28. He thinks slavery instigated the conflict and states’ rights are used to defend the monument.
Chrren is not alone in his views. Following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, thousands protested in the streets against both police brutality and systemic racism. Protesters spray-painted statues of Confederate soldiers and generals with messages like “They were racists’’ in blood-red, and toppled others down from their pedestals. Thousands flocked to change.org to sign petitions demanding the statues’ removal. That momentum has since slowed, however, and many such memorials remain. Today, public tax dollars support the maintenance of at least six streets, buildings, memorials and monuments honoring the Confederacy across Austin alone.
The statue on the Texas Capitol Grounds — which prominently displays Jefferson Davis, then-president of the Confederacy — has survived several change.org petitions demanding its removal. Many who signed these petitions argued that the statue both glorifies white supremacists and features inaccurate statistics on the size of the Confederate army in contrast to that of the Union. These complaints seem to have lived mostly online, however, as one Texas State Capitol employee noted that she has not heard of any major challenges to the monument in her 14 years of work there.
Ron and Janie Tran of Dallas think the statues are a valuable, albeit flawed, artifact of history.
“It is a reminder of the painful past,” Janie, 60, said. “You can’t hide from it, so you better learn from it.”
While the couple thought that the Confederate cause was reprehensible, they argued that removing the statues erases or conceals the past. The Trans, among many others, favored adding context — for instance, a new plaque or a change to the inscription noting the role of slavery in the Civil War — over outright removal.
Other visitors argued that people cannot fairly judge the morality of Confederate soldiers and leaders by modern-day standards.
“Those were not bad people,” Jeff Wineland, 67, of Georgetown, Texas said of the Confederate soldiers honored by the monument. “They were just on the losing side.”
Several tourists agreed that either keeping or removing the statue will inspire opposition. But a third option exists. Adding context to existing monuments, or even adding entirely new monuments, creates a fuller, more accurate telling of history.
“I don’t necessarily agree with tearing them down. There are people that have done some evil things,” DeLisa Perry, 36, a Black woman from Houston said, referring to the Confederate memorial.
“But it’s part of history,” Perry’s husband Shaun, 37, said as he gazed up at the African American History Memorial, which was added to the grounds in 2016. “I feel like we’re doing our due diligence trying to rectify that [slavery and racism], and tearing down history doesn’t rectify that. Part of history is ‘this is what happened when we were divided as a nation.’ But when we come together, look what we can do.”
