UT removes Jefferson Davis statue
Confederate leader’s monument will move to U.S. history center
The University of Texas at Austin removes a statue of Jefferson Davis from its main mall over the objections of Confederate groups.
AUSTIN — The University of Texas at Austin on Sunday morning removed a statue of Jefferson Davis from its main mall, over the objections and amid ongoing legal action by Confederate groups.
Students and others cheered as the larger-than-life-sized bronze statue came down, just as the campus’s historic clock tower stuck 10:15 a.m. Some even sang a few bars from fictitious band Steam’s “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye.”
The move was made just days after a state District Judge Karin Crump shot down an attempt by the Sons of Confederate Veterans to block the statue’s removal. The removal took about an hour and a half; it will be refurbished and relocated to the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, also on UT’s campus.
Gregory Vincent, UT’s vice president for diversity and community, called the moment “iconic.”
“It really shows the power of student leadership,” said Vincent, who chaired a student-faculty task force that suggested either removing or altering the statue. It, as well as several other statues representing Confederate leaders, had been
vandalized several times over the years by individuals who viewed it as a representation of the South’s heritage of slavery and racism.
Confederate groups will continue to fight the change, said their attorney, Kirk Lyons, who said the Sons of Confederate Veterans will seek for Davis’ statue to be put back or put in a more prominent place on campus than at the Briscoe Center.
‘ISIS-style cleansing’
Lyons called the removal an “ISIS-style cleansing of history and tradition from a so-called institution of higher learning,” and said as long as he is “above the ground” he and the SCV Texas chapter will seek to have the statue put back in its original place.
The removal cost about $15,000. Austin-based company Vault Fine Art Services was contracted to undertake the removal. A company has not chosen, nor has a cost estimate been issued, for the refurbishment.
Fates of other statues
A statue of former President Woodrow Wilson will also be removed to maintain symmetry on the mall. The campus has not yet decided where to relocate the Wilson statue. Several other statues, including those of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Albert Sidney Johnson, Confederate Postmaster General John Reagan and James Hogg, the first native Texan to be elected governor, whose father was a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army, will remain on the mall.