We’re calling on the governor and rest of the State Preservation Board to remove from the Texas Capitol the offensive and inaccurate plaque glorifying the Confederacy. The board meets on Friday (Jan. 11) to consider the issue. Check out our press release below.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 10, 2019
AUSTIN – The State Preservation Board should vote on Friday to take down a deeply divisive and historically inaccurate plaque that lies about the history of the Civil War and slavery, Texas Freedom Network Political Director Carisa Lopez said today.
“Removing this plaque is about telling the truth, not erasing our history,” Lopez said. “It’s embarrassing that for decades our Capitol has displayed a plaque that blatantly lies about and glorifies such a dark and evil part of our history.”
The State Preservation Board, which includes Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dennis Bonnen among its six members, will consider removing the plaque at a meeting on Friday.
The “Children of the Confederacy Creed” plaque falsely declares that the Civil War wasn’t a rebellion and that sustaining slavery wasn’t its cause. Placed in the Capitol in 1959, the plaque was among numerous memorials and monuments glorifying the Confederacy that were erected throughout the South during the white backlash to the Civil Rights Movement of the middle 20th century.
Last November the State Board of Education voted to require Texas public schools to teach that slavery was the central cause of the Civil War. The board eight years earlier had refused to do so, with one member at the time actually calling slavery a “side issue” in that war.
“Whether in our children’s school textbooks or in our public monuments and memorials, it’s past time to bury the generations-old lie that the Confederacy fought for some noble cause rather than to defend the evil institution of slavery,” Lopez said. “Unless we understand and accept the truth about our nation’s past, it will be much harder to overcome the challenges that still divide us as Americans today.”
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Texas Freedom Network is a grassroots organization of religious and community leaders who support social justice, religious freedom and individual liberties.
