LONGVIEW, Texas — A small group of people made one last plea for the removal of the Confederate monument in front of the Gregg County Courthouse.
Roughly two dozen people gathered for a rally Friday evening in advance of the Gregg County Commissioners Court vote on whether to remove the state or leave it in place.
“I do want to place emphasis on the fact that we’re not talking about destroying history,” Longview City Council member Nona Snoddy said. “We’re just talking about putting it in a place where it would be more appropriate.”
For the last 109 years, the statue’s place has been on the lawn of the Gregg County Courthouse. Inscribed on one side is a dedication to “our confederate heroes.”
“The statue is a monument to white supremacy,” LaDarian Brown, Senior Pastor of Parkview Baptist Church, said, “and honestly has no place on the lawn of a courthouse that’s supposed to stand for justice.”
“The Confederate monument, in so many ways, represents that history that’s so painful for people who look like me,” Longview City Council member Ray Wade added.
Chelsea Laury created an online petition to urge the county commissioners to remove the monument, which has more than 4,000 signatures. She spoke about the monument’s history. It was built in 1911, a time of great racial unrest and violence in Longview.
Brendon Behlke said this is a chance to show the Black community in Longview that they have a voice.
“We don’t have statues for terrorists,” he mentioned. “We don’t have statues for other traitors of the State. Why is it that we keep perpetuating this one?
“And until we’re able to take care of things as simple as this, we have kind of a closed door on meaningful conversations towards things that are actually resulting in people’s deaths, and things like that.”
Behlke said he has his doubts that the county commissioners will vote to remove the statue, even after other cities have removed Confederate statues and taken names of buildings as a way to ease the pain of America’s racist history.
“If Judge (Bill) Stoudt isn’t going to do it, and the leadership that we have now isn’t going to do it, it’s going to happen,” he stated. “We’re just going to have to take them out of office before it does.”
Snoddy said Monday’s vote is not a vote about the past, but about the future.
“We do realize that some say, ‘heritage,’” she mentioned regarding the supporters of the monument. “We say, ‘hate.’ This is a time for us to move forward, a time for us to not be left behind.”
The Gregg County Commissioners Court will meet at 9:00 a.m. on Monday. The Longview City Council is also scheduled to debate the future of the monument at its meeting later Monday evening.