Why am I surprised? I mean, I guess I’m not, really, but if I remember my history correctly, absolutely no Civil War activity happened in or around Dallas. Sure, there were naval blockades down south, and some skirmishes along the Mexico border and over around Louisiana, but nothing in this part of Texas. So why a monument? It’s a relatively early one too, raised by the Daughters of the Confederacy on June 25, 1896 according to a dedication carving on the base.
I don’t recall being aware of it before I looked at the WorldWide Photo Walk route on Gmaps, and I determined to photograph it before it gets torn down.
Surely the proudly multicultural City of Dallas would want to remove that thing, right? I mean, it’s right next to the Convention Center, after all.
Anyway.
I walked around it and shot at the various statues of dead people and tried to keep from shouting profanity or or spitting on anything. Each of the four corners has a statue of some traitor dead general or the “president” of those traitorous the Confederates. They’re not very well done, but maybe they’re just old and weatherbeaten. The Jefferson Davis one is particularly cartoonish.
And the whole thing is topped with a random soldier.
After wandering around the thing for a bit, wondering just what it was doing there and when it would get demolished, I paused to show it the proper respect before getting on with the photowalk.
Racist ideology has no place in the United States in the Twenty-First century. Maybe it was ok in 1896 (or 1961, when the city moved it out of the way of I35), but not now.
