Two of my great-great-grandfathers fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War, and one owned slaves. My family and I regretfully acknowledge and study this terrible part of our past. We want to deal with it today, for our and our country’s sake, and we want to help make a just future.
That’s why we’re getting fed up with the Brownsville City Commission's foot dragging about removing the Jefferson Davis memorial stone from Washington Park.
On Jan. 19 the stone was used as the centerpiece for a group of people dressed as Confederate soldiers, who erected a Confederate flag right on city property. These people also detonated a cannon and several guns, though the area is encircled by homes and people who live in them.
Protesters in the park, people simply enjoying it and the park’s neighbors received no notice of the detonations. They were sudden, deafening and frightening.
I asked a Brownsville Police Department supervisor, parked nearby, if the city had approved the explosions. He said that a police lieutenant gave permission. Three police cars were overseeing the event. The vehicles included four or five officers.
We, the taxpayers of Brownsville, pay the salaries of our police officers. We paid for the time that several spent near the Jefferson Davis memorial stone. They could have been working elsewhere, ensuring community safety. Instead they were supervising a celebration of the Confederacy, complete with weaponry and detonation.
The police were doing this at our expense, though the city for more than a year has been examining the possibility of removing the stone. Months ago the City Commission publicly agreed that getting it out of the park is a good idea, and it assigned responsibility for the legal and physical logistics of removal to Commissioner Ben Neece.
Citizens of Brownsville who have worked with the city to explore and facilitate removal have heard nothing from Neece in months, or from anyone else on the Commission.
The Jefferson Davis stone is a tribute to white supremacy and racism that still hurt our citizenry — and not just African-Americans but Mexican-Americans as well.
The people of Brownsville have already spoken to our representatives. And yet nothing. As we saw Jan. 19, the stone is a magnet for the iron filings of a terrible evil. The city not only preserves the magnet on city land — our land — but makes us pay for the evil it attracts.
Debbie Nathan
Brownsville
Confederate Heroes Day Protest Photo Credit: Stephanie Domínguez