San Antonio City Officials: #Alamo Cenotaph Will Be Moved From Site; "Obscures Views" [#TXPolitics 24/7]

San Antonio officials have decided that a historic monument near the Alamo must be relocated as part of the $450 million plan to redevelop the Alamo. The move is guaranteed to stir passions.

News 4 San Antonio reports that City Councilman Roberto Trevino say the Cenotaph monument doesn't fit on-site and obscures views. He says the city isn't considering leaving the 60-foot in its current location.

The monument was erected in celebration of the centenary of the battle, and bears the names of those known to have fought there on the Texas side.

Relocating the structure has been the most vocally opposed issue in the plan proposed in 2014 by the city, Texas General Land Office Commissioner George P. Bush, and the nonprofit Alamo Endowment. Most of the plan includes maintenance and infrastructure improvements.

Residents and historians and citizens throughout the state have raised alarm bells about the removal of he statue, which commemorates the  Alamo defenders killed in the 1836 battle. Legend says that some the burned remains of the bodies of those killed in the siege were buried on the site of the cenotaph. A 1940 newspaper article says many of the defenders died on the spot.

Residents have raised concerns about the road closures required during a move. Historians and others have raised the logistical challenges of moving the structure without destroying it, due to its age and fragility. The proposed move has prompted protests from citizens and historical advocacy groups.

During the 1936 Texas Centennial celebration, the state of Texas provided $100,000 for the monument, commissioned from local sculptor Pompeo Coppini. San Antonio mayor Maury Maverick held a dedication ceremony on November 11, 1940. (See Wikipedia article.)

The shaft rises sixty feet from its base and is forty feet long and twelve feet wide. The monument was erected in grey Georgia marble and pink Texas granite. It was entitled The Spirit of Sacrifice and incorporates images of the Alamo garrison leaders and 187 names of Alamo defenders known at the time it was constructed.

#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.