Where is UT’s statue of Jeff Davis?
On Sunday, on the front of the American-Statesman Insight section and online, I will be able to update you on the temporary whereabouts of the Jefferson Davis statue that was unceremoniously removed from the University of Texas Main Mall last year. The news will be shocking to some, though perhaps mostly to the most loyal sons and daughters of the Old South.
But until then, I will remind you that the Davis and Woodrow Wilson statues were evicted from campus after some UT navel-gazing that resulted in a decision that both men, though revered by some in their times, harbored sentiments that today make them unworthy of prominent display. Both were hauled to a UT warehouse. Both are now elsewhere.
Wilson’s eventual destination is to be determined. Davis will wind up at UT’s Dolph Briscoe Center for American History after the major ongoing renovation that’s scheduled to be completed in April. The center houses impressive, eclectic collections, including ones featuring important archives of Texas, congressional and Southern history; civil rights and social justice; news media; military; UT and others. Many of the collections are special and specialized, such as the Archives of American Mathematics.
The Briscoe Center also includes the Sam Rayburn Museum in Bonham, the Briscoe-Garner Museum in Uvalde and the 225-acre Winedale facility, near Round Top, that includes 19th-century structures and furnishings in Fayette County.
The center currently is celebrating its 25th anniversary with an exhibit called “25 Years/25 Treasures” at the LBJ Presidential Library. You can see an 1849 photo of the Alamo (billed as the “oldest datable photograph of Texas”), the marble rostrum used by every U.S. House speaker from 1857 to 1950 and the eyewitness Alamo account by Mexican army officer Jose Enrique de la Peña claiming David Crockett was captured and executed, which differs from how history and Hollywood generally recall Crockett’s demise. The exhibit ends Jan. 16. The April opening of the renovated Briscoe Center will mark a major step into a new era. To date, the center has been a place for historians and others to do research. That will remain its prime focus, but a
new exhibit gallery will be a place to display some of the center’s many interesting holdings.
“We want people to come visit,” Executive Director Don Carleton told me after a recent gathering of the center’s advisory council. “We’re not really becoming a traditional museum. Our No. 1 thing is still providing evidence for historians to use to write history and for students to use. But we feel like we need to open up our collections more and let people see what we have that they now can’t see.”
To make it more inviting, the renovated space will have an entrance on the passageway to the nearby LBJ Library. That could help boost tourist traffic into the Briscoe Center.
The renovation plans look impressive, though the so-called experts involved have made a big mistake: no gift shop.
They might want to rethink that. I see T-shirts, post cards and Jefferson Davis action figures.
I’ll see you Sunday online and on the front of the Insight section with the news about the Davis statue’s current whereabouts. Hint: He’s not in a gray area.