#Texas Leads Nation In Removing #Confederate Memorials, Says Southern Poverty Law Center Report [TX Politics 24/7 blog]

Children of the Confederacy plaque in the State House in Austin

A new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center says Texas leads the way in removing Confederate memorials, including statues - 31 in the past three years.

The survey identified 110 Confederate symbols removed since the Charleston massacre, including 47 monuments and four flags, and name changes for 37 schools, seven parks, three buildings and seven roads. Among them was the Confederate battle flag that had flown at the South Carolina State House grounds in Columbia for 54 years.

Confederate memorial outside the state Capitol building
in Austin.

Texas led the way (31), followed by Virginia (14), Florida (9), Tennessee (8), Georgia (6), Maryland (6), North Carolina (5) and Oklahoma (5). Eighty-two removals were in former Confederate states.

The Southern Poverty Law Center says it has undertaken an effort to catalog the symbols "in an effort to assist the efforts of local communities to re-examine these symbols," which the group categorizes as promoting "revisionist history."

The report, "Whose Heritage? Public Symbols of the Confederacy," identified 1,728 Confederate monuments, place names and other symbols still in public spaces, both in the South and across the nation.

Last September, House Speaker Joe Strauss (R - San Antonio) spearheaded an effort to remove a plaque from the State House in Austin placed there in 1959 by the Children of the Confederacy.

Rep. Eric Johnson (D - Dallas) has long argued for the plaque's removal. Straus, who is not seeking re-election this year, called the plaque offensive and misleading.