It took just about five minutes for the State Preservation Board finally to vote today to remove the racist and historically inaccurate Confederate plaque that has been displayed at the Texas Capitol for nearly six decades. Check out our press release:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 11, 2019
AUSTIN – The State Preservation Board’s vote today to remove from the Texas Capitol a plaque that lies about the central role of slavery in causing the Civil War is a positive step forward, Texas Freedom Network Political Director Carisa Lopez said today.
“It’s frustrating that it took so long to remove this blatantly inaccurate and offensive plaque, but we commend the State Preservation Board for its vote today,” Lopez said. “Now it’s important also to look at the many other monuments and memorials across Texas and ensure that they don’t glorify the Confederacy and those who fought to defend the evil institution of slavery. We can best honor our past by telling the truth about it and using that truth to help heal the divisions that still challenge us today.”
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.
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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.
