Context of the ‘Spirit’
African American Culture museum puts Confederate statue in its place
The naked angel figure of “Spirit of the Confederacy” faces a reckoning.
The 8-foot bronze, which for decades stood in a shady bower at Sam Houston Park, has a new home in a narrow courtyard behind the Houston Museum of African American Culture. It looks enormous there, literally the elephant in the room placed opposite “Eyes,” a display of a half-dozen quirky, stonetopped pedestals by the late Houston artist Bert Long, Jr.
“The eyes of Bert and Black America are now ever on the ‘Spirit of the Confederacy’ and the ideology it represents,” said John Guess, Jr., the museum’s CEO emeritus. “This symbol of hate exists in a context where it will constantly be engaged.”
Houston’s African American museum is the first in the nation to take possession of one of the contentious monuments celebrating Confederate ideals and heroes that have been removed from public view in recent years. The Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., which tracks Confederate-themed symbols of all kinds across the U.S., has identified more than 1,700 symbols of various kinds (including the names of buildings, institutions and roads) that still exist. They pop up nationwide but are overwhelmingly present across the South. Of the total ‘symbols,’ 725 are monuments, and of those, 63 are located in Texas.
“One of the problems with these huge outdoor statues is that they don’t say anything. There’s no context,” said Lecia Brooks, the Center’s chief of staff. In an AfricanAmerican space, “Spirit” has
back and scrap their contract with the Shiloh Treatment Center.
“I take that back,” Barry said Tuesday. “He was holding our 22,000 students hostage, because each and every one of them will be impacted by the potentially lost $2.5 million.”
Treatment center troubles
Past problems at the Manvel-based Shiloh Treatment Center are well documented.
Four children who were part of the center’s residential program died in their care over the past two decades — three after being restrained by staff and one who ran away from the facility and was hit by a car. In 2014, the Houston Chronicle reported that migrant children placed there through a federal contract were injected with a powerful psychiatric drug without their consent. Court filings detail other accusations of abuse.
Although the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services wrote in 2011 that they would stop placing foster children with the group’s residential side, the site remains on the Texas Education Agency’s approved vendors list for daytime programming for some children with disabilities.
A handful of districts located near the facility, including Pearland ISD, still send students to Shiloh. Pearland ISD Director of Special Populations Lisa Nixon said it’s one of three facilities the district uses for students with profound behavioral issues who cannot be served safely in their schools. Their behaviors can be dangerous to themselves, other students and staff, Nixon said at the Aug. 10 meeting, and the district does not have the capacity to provide enough self-contained classrooms for those students. The placements in these facilities are a last resort, she said, and five students are slated to return to Shiloh this coming school year.
The thought incensed Floyd, who asked that the board pull the contract off the consent agenda.
“There’s a history of death and drugging,” he said at the meeting. “I don’t think we should be giving them any money at all. I think it would be irresponsible to send any kid there.”
Four trustees who spoke to the Houston Chronicle on Tuesday — including the board president, Gooden, Vice President Lance Botkin and trustees Jeff Barry and Crystal Carbone — said they also had reservations about sending kids to Shiloh.
“If there was another facility that provided these resources and didn’t have the cloud over it that Shiloh does, I would have voted against the Shiloh contract in a heartbeat,” Barry said. “But we have to take guidance from (staff) because they’re the ones interacting with these facilities and the kids. And from all information we received in the meeting, Shiloh has made some progress as far as cleaning up their act, so to speak.”
After more than an hour of discussion, they and Trustee Rebecca Decker voted in favor of the contract, with the stipulation that someone from the Special Populations Department would go to Shiloh every day to check on the students. Floyd and Trustee Sean Murphy voted against.
The board appeared to move on to other topics, until a budget vote at the end of the agenda.
Budget surprise
Legislators in 2018 made sweeping changes to school funding, including provisions for additional state funds and mechanisms for tax relief in places where property values have risen at breakneck speeds. While they limited the rate districts could collect property taxes in relation to those property value increases, they gave board members an option — they could unanimously approve what’s known as a golden penny and automatically receive money from the state. For Pearland ISD, that one golden penny amounted to $2.5 million.
Superintendent John Kelly and four trustees said they had discussed that vote since budget talks began in January, and it seemed like a done deal. Trustee Crystal Carbone said it appeared so set in stone that district officials included it in the budget trustees approved more than a month ago.
But when it came time to vote on Aug. 10, Floyd was the lone dissenting vote. Without his approval, the board will have to ask taxpayers to approve of it as part of a voter-approval tax rate election. Although the district could still get the money if voters approve of the measure, if it fails, the district could lose millions at a time when they are spending extra on laptops for students and supplies related to COVID-19.
Floyd said his decision was simple: The district and board acted irresponsibly in sending $300,000 and five students to Shiloh, so he wanted taxpayers to decide whether they should be trusted with the money. Some in the community cheered the move, saying it shined a light on a problematic contract.
Others, including some of the trustees who spoke to the Chronicle worry that the measure including the $2.5 million could get lost among the pages of other races and issues before it appears on the ballot, and that Floyd’s vote was a poor reaction to the Shiloh vote.
Regardless, the money issue will be decided on Nov. 3. And although Floyd has resigned and is taking a gap year before attending Georgetown University’s Law Center next fall, he plans to stay engaged with the board and local politics. He hopes others will, too.
“People have to watch these meetings and get to know their school board member and their city council members,” he said. “If they don’t get engaged, they won’t have the quality representation I would hope for Pearland.”