AUSTIN, Texas (AP) – Just outside the Texas Capitol entrance gate, a large monument appears in honor of Confederate soldiers, with imposing statues and an inscription that says: “He died for the rights of the state guaranteed by the Constitution”.
It is one of seven Confederate memorials on the Texas Capitol alone. There are more than 2,000 Confederate symbols – from monuments to building names – in public spaces across the country, more than a century and a half after the Civil War ended slavery, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The move to remove Confederate monuments and representations of historical figures who mistreated Native Americans became part of the national calculation of racial injustice after George Floyd’s death last year in Minneapolis. Although many have been removed – or demolished by protesters – it is difficult to remove those that remain.
At least six southern states have monument protection policies, the legal center said, while historic preservation councils and Republican legislative majorities have reduced momentum, saying it is important to preserve America’s past.
“We are in a really important moment of reckoning and racial justice,” said Texas deputy Rafael Anchia, a Democrat who presented a proposal in the Republican-controlled legislature to remove representations of the Confederates in the state chamber. “It fits into this process of racial reconciliation and truth.”
But he is against Republican legislation to protect monuments. Anchia’s move is still waiting for a committee hearing, where attempts to remove Confederate monuments and holidays have died in previous sessions.
Texas is not the only place where the problem faces an uphill battle.
Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee have preservation laws designed to “primarily protect monuments and memorials for the Confederacy,” said Lecia Brooks, chief of staff at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Most of them grew up in the early Jim Crow era.
“The truth is, most of these monuments and memorials offer no historical context,” said Brooks. “It is just a way of venerating people who fought for the continuation of slavery.”
In Alabama, a 2017 law passed when some cities began to bring down Confederate statues prohibits the removal or alteration of monuments over 40 years old. Violations carry a $ 25,000 fine, but some cities have chosen to withdraw them and pay.
In March, Alabama lawmakers rejected revisions to the law that would give cities and counties a way to topple Confederate monuments and relocate them for preservation.
In Pennsylvania, a bill from Senate Republicans would prevent the removal of public monuments without legislative approval, with penalties of up to one felony charge.
In a statement, state senator Doug Mastriano said that Pennsylvania is home to thousands of memorials and monuments “that help tell America’s history to future generations”. He said his legislation came “in response to high profile cases where public monuments have been vandalized”.
Mastriano’s measure would also prevent state support from local governments that refuse to comply with public monument protection laws and “require the Pennsylvania attorney general to prioritize the judgment of any issues related to monument vandalism within the state’s jurisdiction. when a prosecutor refuses to sue. ”
At the Ohio Capitol, the removal of a 9-foot-tall (3-meter-high) copper statue of Christopher Columbus was postponed until at least 2025. It sits on the Statehouse in the city that bears his name since 1932. Critics they say that monuments to the explorer ignore the mistreatment of indigenous peoples when Europeans settled in North America.
The postponement of the removal of the statue came after a council of state lawmakers and city leaders decided in July that a formal removal process should be carried out by the agency that manages the land.
According to a rule approved in February by the Capitol Square Advisory and Review Board, anyone can submit a proposal to remove “commemorative works”, but the final approval will take five years. This happened days after Mayor Andrew Ginther quickly removed a similar statue of Colombo from the City Hall.
Council spokesman Mike Rupert said in a statement that the rule reflects the process for erecting a “commemorative work” on the Ohio Capitol. He said he did not target any monuments.
In California, amid protests for racial injustice last summer, icons were dropped from Junipero Serra, an 18th-century Roman Catholic priest who founded nine of the state’s 21 Spanish missions and is responsible for bringing Roman Catholicism to the western states United. Serra forced Native Americans to stay on missions after they were converted or faced punishment. His statues have been disfigured for years by people who say he has destroyed tribes and their culture.
California’s first Native American deputy, James Ramos, wants to replace a statue of Serra on the Capitol. The Democrat said he worked with tribes on replacement options and to raise awareness of “atrocities, genocide and forced labor” suffered by indigenous peoples during the Spanish missionary period.
“We are bringing that discussion and that voice that was left out of the equation when those monuments were built to be able to have that voice now in 2021,” said Ramos.
While facing a tougher fight in Texas, Anchia still hopes to remove controversial icons from the Capitol after one of the state’s largest Confederate monuments – in Dallas – became one of 168 Confederate symbols removed across the country last year.
But his legislation is against a monument protection project by Republican state senator Brandon Creighton. This would create a process, with public participation, to alter a state memorial to any historic figure – be it a monument or the name of a street.
“One opinion thinks that erasing that part of our past is healthy and is the best path Texas can take,” said Creighton. “And then you have my opinion, and I believe that many others here, that keeping this story in place is very important.”
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Associated Press reporters Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and Farnoush Amiri in Columbus, Ohio contributed to this report. Coronado and Amiri are members of the Associated Press / Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a national nonprofit service program that puts journalists in local newsrooms to report on covert issues.