(Image source from: houstontx.gov)

Some officials from Houston removed the Spirit of Confederacy statues also known as the Confederacy monument from the Sam Houston Park overnight on Tuesday night. The statue has been standing there since 1908, which makes the statue 112 years old.

On Tuesday night the statue which has been standing in the Sam HoustonPark was removed discretely by the officials. Though this is not the only statues that are going to be removed and transferred to some other place. There is one more confederate statue which is scheduled to be removed before the nineteenth of June is that of Richard Dick Dowling from Hermann Park in Houston.

The removal of these two confederate statues and monuments was important and necessary in these particular times and that too before the Juneteenth or the nineteenth of June because that was the day in 1865 when slaves were freed from Texas.

The Mayor of Houston Sylvester Turner had earlier announced that the two confederate statues will be removed and moved to different places to avoid vandalism of any kind of property and for peace to remain in the state

The Dowling statue will also be moved before the nineteenth of June and the schedule is planned. Earlier the statue was supposed to be removed and relocated in the Sabine Pass Battleground State Historic Site in Port Arthur but there has been a slight change in the plan. Now it is said to be moved and stored in a safe warehouse and then relocated to the Historic site in Port Arthur.

Some of the officials of the state have voluntarily agreed on the removal and relocation of the confederate statues and think it is a good idea while some others think it is not such a good idea for the people of Port Arthur which does not just include Black or whites but people of all colours including brown and everybody. Some of the city leaders opposed the idea and also threatened to block the relocation of the statue.

This decision was made considering the protests which happened after the death of George Floyd by police brutality. The protests reignited the conversation of the confederate statues and whether or not it was a good idea to remove such statues and monuments.

The announcement of relocating the confederate statues wasn’t taken well by certain groups of people as they started vandalizing the Christopher Columbus statue at a park near the museum district. Not once, the vandalization happened two nights in a row. At this civil rights moment which is happening nationwide as well as worldwide the destruction of the confederate statueswere happening all around the world from Virginia 5 confederate statues were tore down to London where the protestors dismounted the statue of a slave trader Edward Colston and tossed it in the Bristol harbor.

The spirit of Confederate statue is being moved to the Houston Museum of African American Culture.

By Deepika Agarwal