Confederate plaque to be removed from Texas Capitol

The Texas State Preservation Board voted unanimously to have a plaque honoring the Confederacy removed from the Capitol, KUT reported Thursday.

The plaque, which honors the Confederate States of America and those who fought for it, was installed in 1959 by the Texas division of the Children of the Confederacy. It states that group’s creed, which maintains that the war was caused by an act of rebellion and that—contrary to specific statements in Texas’s 1861 declaration of secession—the defense of slavery was not an underlying cause for the war.

Along with the rest of the country, the state and city have been slowly addressing the issue of honoring central figures of the Confederacy with school names, street names, and monuments, many of which have been removed or renamed. The state University of Texas at Austin has also removed a number of statues and monuments.

State Rep. Eric Johnson (D-Dallas) led the movement to remove such plaques, calling attention to the issue in 2017 and gaining bipartisan support from key lawmakers, but following the vote, Johnson discouraged too much self-congratulation, noting that the plaque has been there for 60 years without much, if any, vocal opposition on the part of legislators.

Conservative Response Team, a Missouri-based group, intends to inundate Texas lawmakers with 100,000 robocalls in an attempt to save the plaque, according to KUT.

• The Confederate Plaque In The Texas Capitol Will Be Removed [KUT]