Texas college removes Confederate statues
Campus monuments taken down overnight
AUSTIN, Texas — The University of Texas quickly removed statues of Robert E. Lee and other prominent Confederate figures overnight from the main area of the Austin campus early Monday, just hours after the school’s president ordered they be taken down.
University President Greg Fenves abruptly announced late Sunday that the statues would be removed, saying such monuments have become “symbols of modern white supremacy and neo-nazism.” Crews worked through the night amid a heavy police presence.
The school blocked off the area, and some arguments occurred among those gathered. But all the statues of Lee, Confederate Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston and Confederate Postmaster General John H. Reagan were successfully taken down.
By late morning, people walking by were stopping to gawk at the four pedestals, empty except for some construction debris and the bolts that once held the statues in place. Some snapped selfies, while a few climbed up the structures where the statues once stood.
But the scene remained peaceful and the area largely deserted. The university doesn’t begin classes until next week.
Mark Peterson, who identified himself as a University of Houston student said he was seething at the removal of the statues.
“I hate the erasure of history and my people’s history … people of European descent who built this country,” the 22-year-old said. “It burns me to my core.”
Mike Lowe, an activist for the removal of Confederate statues in San Antonio, was driving to Dallas when he heard the statues were coming down, turned around and drove to campus. Lowe, who is African-american, engaged in a brief but tense argument with a white male protester until police stepped in to separate them.
“They have no other reasons than ‘you are erasing our history.’ Their reasoning is flawed. These monuments represent white supremacy, and black lives haven’t mattered in this county the same as a white man’s matters,” the 37-year-old
Lowe said.