One Black, Texas Mayor is NOT Buying This Confederate Flag Hoopla

by Warner Todd Huston | July 12, 2015 8:58 pm

Mayor Ivy Taylor of San Antonio, Texas may be an African American and a Democrat, but she isn’t buying into all this rigmarole about the evils of the Confederate flag.

One of her Democrat colleagues on the city council asked her if they should start assessing which Confederate graves, or monuments of flags they should begin eliminating. But Mayor Taylor wasn’t having any of it.

The mayor released this statement[1] pointing out that trying to erase history is not the best move..

Slavery and the Civil War are part of the American legacy. For more than 200 years we’ve been trying to fully realize the revolutionary premise of democracy: all men are created equal. Selectively erasing pieces of our past may make it more comfortable for us today but it also makes it easier for many to ignore the historic struggles of Blacks and other minorities in this country, a struggle for equality that continues today.

It is offensive to use the rebel battle flag as a symbol of a city or state but it is also offensive to pretend that Texas was never a slave state or that racism has played no role in our history for the past 150 years.

The City Manager has already directed staff to identify any monuments connected with Confederate history or symbolism and I will be receiving that report shortly, after which time the appropriate staff or Council committee can consider opportunities for expanding interpretation at these sites.

The mayor also noted[2] that eliminating Confederate symbols at Confederate cemeteries was also wrong.

“Erasing historical monuments doesn’t make our past any easier to understand or deal with today,” she said.