UT takes down statues of Jefferson Davis, Woodrow Wilson
AUSTIN, Texas — Statues of Jefferson Davis and Woodrow Wilson were removed Sunday from the limestone pedestals at the University of Texas on which they have stood for 82 years.
“This is an iconic moment. It really shows the power of student leadership,” said Gregory Vincent, UT’s vice president for diversity and community engagement, referring to a Student Government resolution that called for removing the statue of Davis, president of the Confederate States, from its prominent setting on the university’s Main Mall.
The Davis statue will be installed in 18 months or so in UT’s Briscoe Center for American History after the center is renovated, while Wilson’s will be placed at a yet-to-be-decided outdoor location on campus, according to university officials.
UT announced that it would remove the statues from their limestone pedestals on the Main, or South, Mall after the Texas Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans failed to win a court injunction to block the plan.
About 50 people turned out to watch the removal of the Davis statue, according to a spokeswoman for the UT Police Department.
“I think it’s a good idea,” said Sandra Bieri, a 1961 UT graduate and retired law firm librarian. “It’s overdue.”
Kirk Lyons, the Confederate group’s lawyer, said he would press on with a legal fight to return “Brother Jeff” and “Brother Woodrow,” as he calls them, to the mall.
When UT president Gregory L. Fenves announced his decision earlier this month to move the statues, he said it was no longer in the university’s best interest to memorialize the Confederate leader on the Main Mall. Because of the Confederacy’s effort to preserve slavery, it had been vandalized numerous times over the years.
Mr. Fenves decided against moving statues of Confederate Gens. Robert E. Lee and Albert Sidney Johnston, Confederate Postmaster John H. Reagan and James Stephen Hogg, the first native-born governor of Texas and the son of a Confederate general. The four had deeper ties to Texas than did Davis, Mr. Fenves said.
When he announced his plan for the statues this month, Mr. Fenves said the Wilson statue, which stood opposite the Davis statue, would be moved to maintain symmetry on the mall.