AUSTIN, Texas – With no warning, the remaining Confederate statues were removed from the University of Texas at Austin campus Sunday night.
The removal of the statues depicting Robert E. Lee, Albert Sidney Johnston, John Reagan and James Stephen Hogg began just before midnight.
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By first light on Monday, several students and staff at the state’s flagship university said the removal was a move in the right direction.
"It's a wonderful thing,” Cheryl McGrath said. “I think it's a really positive day."
This is not the first time debate about the statues was considered.
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"I think it's a bold move,” Sugar Ray Destin, an alumni of the university, said. “It's time for history to change." In 2015, after the mass shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, the university removed the statue of Jefferson Davis from the main mall near the UT Tower.
The four remaining Confederate statues on campus were removed from Main Mall last night. Read our full story here: https://t.co/F3sYtLT24M pic.twitter.com/zy50Gf926e
— The Daily Texan (@thedailytexan) August 21, 2017
"After considering the original task force report and with the events of the past week and my discussions with the campus community in mind, I have decided to relocate the remaining four statues," UT president Gregory Fenves said in a statement.
But not everyone supported the move.
"I do not like the statues coming down because the statues represent a piece of history, a piece of American history," student Nicholas Gerow said.
The statues of Johnston, Reagan and Lee will join the statue of Davis in the Briscoe Center for American Studies.
As for the statue of Hogg, it could be re-installed somewhere else on campus.
Below is the statement from UT President Gregory Fenves:
Dear UT Community, Last week, the horrific displays of hatred at the University of Virginia and in Charlottesville shocked and saddened the nation. These events make it clear, now more than ever, that Confederate monuments have become symbols of modern white supremacy and neo-Nazism.
After the Charleston, South Carolina, church shooting in June 2015, and with the urging of students, I formed a task force of faculty, students, alumni and university leaders to evaluate six statues on UT's Main Mall that included depictions of four military and political leaders of the Confederacy. The task force presented five options, ranging from the installation of contextual materials to the removal of some or all of the statues.
At that time, I decided to move the statues of Jefferson Davis and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. The Davis statue has since been restored and presented at UT’s Dolph Briscoe Center for American History in a scholarly exhibition about the Littlefield Fountain and the six Main Mall statues.
During the past several days, I have talked with student leaders, students, faculty members, staff members and alumni to listen to their views after the revelatory events in Charlottesville. I also revisited the very thorough 2015 task force report. After considering the original task force report and with the events of the past week and my discussions with the campus community in mind, I have decided to relocate the remaining four statues.
The statues depicting Robert E. Lee, Albert Sidney Johnston, John Reagan and James Stephen Hogg are now being removed from the Main Mall. The Lee, Johnston and Reagan statues will be added to the collection of the Briscoe Center for scholarly study. The statue of James Hogg, governor of Texas (1891-1895), will be considered for re-installation at another campus site.
The University of Texas at Austin is a public educational and research institution, first and foremost. The historical and cultural significance of the Confederate statues on our campus — and the connections that individuals have with them — are severely compromised by what they symbolize.
Erected during the period of Jim Crow laws and segregation, the statues represent the subjugation of African Americans. That remains true today for white supremacists who use them to symbolize hatred and bigotry.
The University of Texas at Austin has a duty to preserve and study history. But our duty also compels us to acknowledge that those parts of our history that run counter to the university’s core values, the values of our state and the enduring values of our nation do not belong on pedestals in the heart of the Forty Acres.
We do not choose our history, but we choose what we honor and celebrate on our campus. As UT students return in the coming week, I look forward to welcoming them here for a new academic year with a recommitment to an open, positive and inclusive learning environment for all.
