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Robert E. Lee Road and Jeff Davis Avenue are no more after the Austin City Council on Thursday voted to remove the names of the Confederate leaders from the two Austin streets that bear their names.

Instead the road that ambles along Barton Creek into the Zilker neighborhood will be named for Azie Taylor Morton, the country’s first and only black U.S. treasurer, who grew up and went to college in Austin. Its official designation will be Azie Morton Road. In the Brentwood neighborhood in North Austin, the street that was presumably named for the president of the Confederacy will now be named for William Holland, an African-American Travis County commissioner who served in the state Legislature and founded the Deaf, Dumb and Blind Institute for Colored Youth in Austin in 1887, a precursor to the Texas School for the Blind. The vote was 10-0 with City Council Member Ellen Troxclair absent from the meeting.

While most of the residents who responded to surveys from the city objected to the proposed name changes, the lion’s share of speakers at City Hall on Thursday were in favor of the revisions.

Login SUBSCRIBE SIGN IN ENTERTAINMENT Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede gets name change, now called Stampede

Dixie Stampede's holiday show includes horseback riders. Courtesy of Eixie Stampede Facebook Twitter Email Aa _ + Maggie Jones | USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee Updated 1 minute ago Dolly Parton's Pigeon Forge dinner attraction, Dixie Stampede, has a new name.

It's now known as Dolly Parton's Stampede, according to a news release from World Choice Investments. The attraction will start its 2018 season later in January with shows on Jan. 19, 20, 26 and 27, according to its website. It also has a location in Branson, Missouri.

REMOVING CONFUSION, CONCERN ABOUT SHOWS Parton explained in the press release that the change streamlines the name of the show, will remove any confusion or concern about it, and will help efforts to bring the show into new cities.

“Our shows currently are identified by where they are located,” Parton said in the news release. “Some examples are Smoky Mountain Adventures or Dixie Stampede. We also recognize that attitudes change and feel that by streamlining the names of our shows, it will remove any confusion or concerns about our shows and will help our efforts to expand into new cities.”

First they will remove the Confederate memorial veterans’ monuments, then the radicals will target the monuments to 19th century slave owners, and then the monuments to the slave owning Founding Fathers. Then the monuments to any American who said anything contrary to 21st century values. Once that is complete they will target the graves and the cemeteries. After that they will target anyone especially conservatives.

First they came for the Confederate memorial monuments and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a native Southerner.
Then they came for the 19th century American heroes, and I did not speak out—
Because they didn’t mean anything to me.
Then they targeted the Founding Fathers, and I did not speak out—
Because I didn’t care about some dead white men who lived long ago.
Then they came for me— because they had accomplished their goals of destroying America’s heritage.

ST. LOUIS - The Missouri Civil War Museum wants the controversial Confederate Memorial from Forest Park. However, the city says they won’t get it. Mark Trout, founder and CEO of the Missouri Civil War Museum, says they are the best option to take control of the Confederate monument, but the city won’t allow them. “We're simply asking them to turn it over to full ownership of Missouri Civil War Museum and we will protect it and preserve it and find an appropriate place for in the future for it,” Trout said. That’s where the problem lies. Koran Addo, chief of staff for St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson, says they will not allow anyone to take total ownership of the monument without allowing the city a say in how it's displayed in future. "We need to make sure that the monument will never be displayed in a way that celebrates the Confederacy. We want it to show accurate history," Addo said. Addo adds that they are not saying the Missouri Civil War Museum would do that. By the end of the week, Mayor Krewson will make an announcement on the future of the monument but for now its headed to storage. "Political figures have been saying throughout our nation for years that these things need to be in an appropriate site under appropriate control of museums,” Trout said. The museum is home to a beautiful Abraham Lincoln statue and recently won a national award for their impartial and balanced presentation of the U.S. Civil War. “Whether it’s a building, musket, saber, uniform or monument, if it relates to Civil War, especially in Missouri, that’s our mission to save it,” Trout said. The city estimates it will cost $130,000 to remove and store the monument. The Missouri Civil War Museum is raising the funds but says they would need to have full ownership rights to remove it from city.

On Tuesday, the Phoenix mayor announced plans to rename a street that is named after a Confederate general, saying it's offensive and sends the wrong message. "We want to send a message about our values as a city and we don't want to have names of streets ... that offend people in our community. That's just not right," Stanton said. Stanton is referring to Robert E. Lee Street in northern Phoenix, which is named after the Confederate general. The push comes as local and national African American leaders call for the removal of Confederate monuments and memorials from public land. [READ MORE: Black leaders: Remove Confederate monuments from Arizona] In Arizona this week, leaders from the NAACP and Black Lives Matter stepped up pressure on Gov. Doug Ducey to removes six confederate memorials and geographic designations on state property. The civil rights leaders said public resources should not be used to promote symbols of "racial terror" and "racial hatred." However, residents living along Robert E. Lee Street do not want to see the name of their street changed. "No, the street name didn't bother me," said Jane Pacelli, who is white and has lived there for decades. "I'd just like to leave it the way it is, you know you have it so long." [RELATED: Questions raised over Confederate monuments in Arizona] The council will begin the process of renaming the street later this month.

As states across the country grapple with the question of whether to remove their Confederate monuments, Gov. Charlie Baker indicated he would support ridding Massachusetts—a bastion of the antislavery movement—of its only such memorial. A modest stone marker was placed on Georges Island in Boston Harbor by the local chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1963. It commemorates the Confederate soldiers imprisoned in Fort Warren on the island during the Civil War, referred to on the marker as “the War Between the States.” Asked by WGBH’s Adam Reilly if the governor thinks it should remain, Baker’s office suggested he does not. “Gov. Baker believes we should refrain from the display of symbols, especially in our public parks, that do not support liberty and equality for the people of Massachusetts,” spokesperson Lizzy Guyton said in a statement. “Since this monument is located on a National Historic Landmark, the governor supports [the state Department of Conservation and Recreation] working with the Massachusetts Historical Commission to explore relocation options.” Actually removing or relocating the thing is complicated. The DCR, which said it has yet to receive a complaint over the marker, owns and operates Georges Island. But the federal government may have final say, as Fort Warren is a designated National Historic Landmark, overseen by the National Park Services. (And we all know how well-versed in American history this administration is.)

If you are frustrated by this act of political correctness and disrespect toward this honored veteran, you may contact the board members individually at:

http://ilikemike.me/contact-your-local-elected-officials/contact-the-orange-county-school-board/

Robert E. Lee Middle School, a name that many say harks back to a dark period in American history, will become College Park Middle.  At the urging of parents and others from the College Park neighborhood, the Orange County School Board voted 7-1 to change the name during a regular meeting Tuesday night. The decision wraps up a year-and-a-half-long process that has included community surveys.  Kat Gordon, Orange’s only black school board member, said she tried to change the name of Lee decades ago when her own children were students there. District leaders then wouldn’t hear it.  “In so many words, they told us to go back to our community and be glad we were even accepted at Robert E. Lee,” she said. The dissenting vote came from board member Christine Moore, who represents Apopka and other areas of northwest Orange. She said the majority of her constituents did not want to change the school’s name.  Lee opened in 1956 as Robert E. Lee Junior High School, a whites-only school. The campus is now diverse: 60 percent of the students are black. Latinos, Asians and multi-racial students make up about one-fifth of the student body. The district expects to spend $20,000 to scrub the Lee name from places like signs, the gym floor and athletic uniforms.

Support for a new name has been strong but not unanimous in the community. A 2016 survey of Orange parents, students, employees and others showed 56 percent wanted to call the school something else. More than a dozen people spoke Tuesday during a public comment period. Opponents, including Robert Lynn, pointed out that Lee was a well-respected man. Lynn also disputed the notion that the school was named in protest of school segregation.  “The 1954 decision had nothing to do with it,” he said. But others, including Julie Montione, said they saw the decision to name a school after Lee as “an act of rebellion.” “This is our moment to decide what kind of message we want to send our community,” said Montione, whose daughter is zoned to attend Lee. “Our board does not look like the board in 1956, and our message is not the same.” Similarly, Marsha Hall, whose children may attend Lee when they’re older, told board members she understands they can’t change history, but urged them to choose a new name that reflects the “inclusion and kindness” of the community. “Change the name and send the message to my African-American son and daughter that we not only care about how they represent the school, but how the school represents them,” she said. 

A federal judge in New Orleans on Tuesday denied a request for an injunction to stop the city from removing four monuments related to the Confederacy.

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier ruled that the New Orleans City Council's 6-1 vote in December to take down monuments to Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, P.G.T Beauregard and a white militia group that led a rebellion against the state's integrated, Reconstruction-era government did not break the law or violate the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.

Barbier added that his decision is not a comment on “the wisdom, or lack thereof, of the actions taken by ... Mayor (Mitch Landrieu) or the City Council.”

The lawsuit Barbier ruled on was brought by the Monumental Task Force Committee, Louisiana Landmarks Society, Foundation for Historical Louisiana and Beauregard Camp No. 130.

City officials had said they would not take action to remove the statues until the court had a chance to review the plaintiffs’ claims. A city spokesman did not immediately respond to a question about how quickly officials intended to proceed with taking the monuments down following Barbier’s ruling.

'Death threats,' 'threatening calls' prompt firm tasked with removing Confederate monuments to quit

The plaintiffs’ attorney, Franklin Jones, also did not immediately respond to a question about whether his clients intended to appeal Barbier’s decision.

Tuesday’s decision wasn’t entirely unexpected.

At a hearing earlier this month, Jones argued that the risk of damaging the statues while taking them down was too great, and an expert had said moving such complex monuments was rife with unknowns. But Barbier didn’t appear to be swayed by that argument, remarking that the expert cited by Jones worked in offshore rigging and had never relocated a statue.

Barbier also remembered how officials used a helicopter to remove and replace the Statue of Freedom atop the U.S. Capitol when that monument needed repairs.

Further, Barbier cast doubt on whether the preservationists behind the suit could prove they had a chance of winning at a full trial, which the plaintiffs needed to do to secure the injunction they wanted. The judge repeatedly asked the plaintiffs’ attorneys questions about their claims and never seemed satisfied with their answers, at one point saying, “I don’t even understand your argument.”

That hearing was the same day New Orleans officials announced that the Baton Rouge company hired to remove the statues had received death threats and quit the project.

Five days later, a $200,000 Lamborghini belonging to the owner of that company was found burned to the ground in the firm’s parking lot.

BRUNSWICK, Maine — Bowdoin College will no longer bestow the Jefferson Davis Award, after the college’s board of trustees voted to approve President Clayton Rose’s proposal to end the practice.

The annual cash award to a student of government and legal studies who excels in constitutional law was named for the Confederate president. It was established in 1972 with an endowed gift from the United Daughters of the Confederacy, according to a news release from the college. In 1858, Davis received an honorary degree from Bowdoin College.

The United Daughters of the Confederacy is an organization of descendants of Confederate soldiers devoted to, among other goals, honoring the memory of those who served the Confederate states, to collect and preserve the material necessary for “a truthful history of the war … and to protect, preserve and mark the places made historic by Confederate valor.”

“It is inappropriate for Bowdoin College to bestow an annual award that continues to honor a man whose mission was to preserve and institutionalize slavery,” Rose said in the release.

The entire current value of the endowed fund will be returned to the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

The college also will place an “interpretive panel” in Memorial Hall to “more generally” explain Bowdoin’s connections to the Civil War, which include alumni such as Gen. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. It also will provide information about Davis, 16 Bowdoin graduates and two graduates of the Medical School of Maine who served in the Confederacy.

In place of the former Jefferson Davis Award, a new award honoring late Bowdoin College professor Richard E. Morgan, the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Constitutional Law, will recognize the same accomplishment in constitutional law. Morgan died in November 2014.

“While I did not have the privilege of knowing Professor Morgan, his national reputation as a scholar of the institutions and principles central to American government and society make it wholly appropriate that we honor him and his lifelong accomplishments with this annual award,” Rose wrote in a separate news release.

As a retired US veteran, I served my country whether or not agreed with its politics—because it was the right thing to do.
The men honored by this monument served their state when they were called to duty regardless of its politics. They left homes and families and joined their friends, relatives and neighbors because it was their duty.
To judge them according to 21st century values and standards is inappropriate and immoral.
Once we begin to scrutinize our veterans’ service, when will it end??? Will a future generation pull down our present veterans monuments because our nation permitted abortion, capital punishment, etc.???

After taking voluminous public comment on the matter, the County Commission voted late Tuesday night to give the county's controversial Confederate soldier statue to the Matheson History Museum.

The motion, made by Commissioner Robert Hutchinson, also called for the Matheson to display the monument in its public outside space; use private funding to move, install and maintain it; and the move would only occur after the county engineer approves the tools and techniques planned to move it.

The motion passed 3-2, with Commissioners Lee Pinkoson and Ken Cornell dissenting.

During the meeting Pinkoson said the monument is meant to honor the dead, and while he is not African-American and might not understand the tragedies that the community suffered in the past, he didn't support moving the statue but would support erecting a plaque at the site that would explain that many touched by the Civil War deserve to be remembered.

Cornell, the first commissioner of the night to speak, suggested creating a truth commission that would explore the issue further.

Hutchinson said the agreement with the Matheson, which has conveyed to the county its willingness to take the statue, would also include language that if something unforeseeable happened to the Matheson, the county would take back the statue. He said if that were to occur, perhaps the statue would be placed in a local veterans park.

County officials don't know how much it would cost to move the monument.

The statue of a soldier, nicknamed “Old Joe," stands tall near downtown Gainesville, just behind the County Commission building. He is poised clutching a gun and standing atop a piece of stone that says it is in memory of the Confederate dead.

More than 20 people spoke during the citizen comment section of the meeting, which lasted more than an hour and a half. Viewpoints were split down the middle with some calling the statue a symbol of enslavement and racism that still continues today. Others called the statue a piece of their history, proud or otherwise.

Anthony Sabatini, a first lieutenant with the Florida National Guard, said the statue represents the lineage of the unit he comes from. He said the statue is not meant in celebration nor is it political.

“It's about the people who died,” Sabatini said.

Margaret Simpson supported keeping the statue in place and connected it to a larger issue. “The issue of removing this statue is a part of an agenda that's been happening nationwide,” she said, adding that the issue reminds her of the cultural revolution in China or Nazi Germany, where there was a so-called “right way” to think about things.

Ryan Cox, who was born in Mississippi, also supported the statue remaining in its place.

“This is going to fuel a backlash and right now there's too many white Southerners that are scared to come forward to tell the truth,” Cox said.

City Commission Charles Goston spoke during citizen comment of a larger issue.

“Don't focus on the statue, focus on the symbolism of that statue and how it affects every last one of us,” he said.

Goston said the driving force behind the closing of Lincoln High School, the poverty east of Waldo Road and the fact that there is such limited African-American representation in local government is racism.

Commissioner Charles Chestnut, said as an African-American, he has felt offended hearing people discuss this issue and refer to their heritage, because during that time, “African-Americans were sold like livestock.”

“I teach my son and my daughter the history because I think it's important because if you don't know your history you're bound to repeat it,” Chestnut said.

Resident Jesse Arost supports moving the statue. Arost told the commission putting a plaque up to explain the history promotes a false knowledge of history and covering “the stench of rot with roses.”

Kali Blount also spoke against the statue, referencing one of the monument's inscriptions: They fell for us and for them should fall the tears of a nation's grief.

“Who is 'us'?” Blount asked, “It's not me.”

The other side of the statue states: They counted the cost and in defense of right they paid the martyr's price.

Blount said a martyr is someone who dies for a noble cause and the current saying “spits in the face of those who were in oppression at that time.”

After the commission's decision, citizens left the room and filed into the hallway, some exclaiming that the move was a long time coming.

Walter Wilmore is a member of the Stonewall Brigade of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Last month, he applied to hold a ceremony on Lee-Jackson Day here at the Lee Chapel at Washington and Lee University.

A few weeks later, he received a notice in the mail rejecting the organization's request to use the chapel. Wilmore says the group has been holding the ceremony there for 14 years and he's shocked the request was denied. "I'm just upset about the whole thing. There's no reason why they had to do this,” said Wilmore. "There's no sense in these people acting like that. We all have to live here together. All we wanted was two hours out of 8760 hours years’ time. I don't think what we're asking for is unreasonable at all."

Your Hometown News Leader reached out to Washington and Lee University. The school's communications director emailed us a copy of the letter it sent to Wilmore.

It states the usage is not in the best interests of the university and is not appropriate for Lee Chapel. It goes on to say the school does not schedule events in Lee Chapel anymore for external groups outside its mission or those that do not have affiliation with the University.

"I feel like I'm being discriminated against,” said Wilmore. “There are 70 million people in this country that are descendent from confederate soldiers and you're only going to push 70 million people so far and I feel like all this is doing is making things worse."

Wilmore says his group still plans to hold its celebration even if it's at another location.

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” ...George Orwell, 1984

Just days after an advisory panel recommended the University of Texas at Austin relocate some or all of its statues of Confederate leaders, UT-Austin President Gregory Fenves announced that the statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis will soon have a new home.

UT is relocating the Davis statue to an exhibit in the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. Four other statues the panel considered relocating — including ones of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Albert Sidney Johnston — will remain on the university’s South Mall, but Fenves will consider adding explanatory plaques to place them in historical context.

“While every historical figure leaves a mixed legacy, I believe Jefferson Davis is in a separate category,” Fenves wrote in a letter to the UT-Austin community, “and that it is not in the university’s best interest to continue commemorating him. Davis had few ties to Texas; he played a unique role in the history of the American South that is best explained and understood through an educational exhibit.”

The statue of former U.S. President Woodrow Wilson will also be relocated to another outdoor location, but for symmetrical reasons: He stands opposite Davis on South Mall. The Davis statue will likely be removed in the next two days, UT-Austin spokesman Gary Susswein said. It will be refurbished and relocated to the Briscoe Center in the next 18 months.

In June, Fenves assembled a 12-member panel of students, professors and alumni to assess the appropriateness of the statues. The panel solicited more than 3,100 opinions from the public and released its recommendations Monday. Its report presented five options, four of which involved moving some or all of the statues to a history center on campus. Another option would have left the statues in place but called for explanatory plaques.

UT-Austin student government President Xavier Rotnofsky and Vice President Rohit Mandalapu made removal of the Davis statue a central part of their platform when running for office. Both served on the advisory panel and said they were happy to see their goal achieved.

"If there is a statue to be relocated it should be Jefferson Davis, the leader of the Confederacy," Mandalapu said. "Now it can be moved to a place where it can be contextualized and studied within the scope of history."

The other Confederate statues of Lee, Johnston, former Texas Gov. James Hogg and Confederate Postmaster General John Reagan have strong ties to Texas, Fenves said in his letter, noting Lee's legacy "should not be reduced to his role in the Civil War."

Moving the Davis statue, while leaving the other four in place is a respectful decision that still honors the heritage of the United States and the university, Fenves said.

The Davis statue has been the most controversial of the ones commemorating Confederate leaders. In March, the student assembly passed a resolution asking UT to remove the statue of Davis. In April, it was vandalized with the phrase “Davis Must Fall.” A week after June's deadly shooting at a black church in South Carolina, the statues of Davis, Lee and Johnston were tagged with the phrase “Black Lives Matter.”

"Statues have layers of meaning: aesthetic, historical, aspirational and educational. History is not innocent; it is the living foundation for the present," the report said. "The university’s approach to changing and replacing monuments on campus should be conservative but not uncritical."

Frederick Douglas reported, “There are at the present moment many Colored men in the Confederate Army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers, but real soldiers, having musket on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down any loyal troops and do all that soldiers may do to destroy the Federal government and build up that of the rebels.”

“The younger Ellisons contributed more than farm produce, labor and money to the Confederate cause. On March 27, 1863 John Wilson Buckner, William Ellison’s oldest grandson, enlisted in the 1st South Carolina Artillery. Buckner served in the company of Captains P.P. Galliard and A.H. Boykin, local white men who knew that Buckner was a Negro. Although it was illegal at the time for a Negro to formally join the Confederate forces, the Ellison family’s prestige nullified the law in the minds of Buckner’s comrades. Buckner was wounded in action on July 12, 1863. At his funeral in Stateburg in August, 1895 he was praised by his former Confederate officers as being a “faithful soldier.””

DIXIE’S CENSORED SUBJECT
BLACK SLAVEOWNERS
By Robert M. Grooms
© 1997

I have never seen a Confederate flag in any lynching photos. The Klan didn’t begin using the Confederate flag until the mid 1950’s.

SUMMERVILLE — More than 200 people have signed a petition to protest a resident flying the Confederate battle flag in the historically black Brownsville community. More than 50 are expected to pack a Town Council meeting today as organizers present it, said District 1 Civic Association spokesman Dexter Mack.

And the association has asked the town for a permit to hold a community “civil rights” style march Saturday down the street in front of the home where the flag is flying. Town planning and public safety officials are reviewing the permit application and a decision is expected later in the week, said Charlie Miller, planning director. But he did not immediately see a reason why the application would be turned down.

Residents of the predominately black Brownsville community in Summerville are angered over a neighbor's Confederate battle flag.

The moves follow a controversy that erupted in September, when a new resident hung a Confederate battle flag from her porch alongside an American flag and decorated her yard with Confederate insignia among other knick-knacks and seasonal decorations.

The move outraged neighbors, and more than 80 residents packed a meeting held by the community’s District 1 Civic Association and a neighborhood Crime Watch group to deal with the matter.

Annie Chambers Caddell, the resident, said she does not understand the community’s concerns, and that the motif is part of who she is and is not racially motivated.

People who live in the neighborhood said they understand that some people consider it heritage, but to them the connection is to slavery, lynchings and the Ku Klux Klan.

Town officials said she has a right to fly the flag and the town won’t force her to bring it down.

“While we understand the woman has a legal right to fly that flag, we want to call public attention to it, so that people will think twice about trying to do something like that again,” said Councilman Aaron Brown, who represents the district.