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The statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis will be moved from its outdoor place of prominence on the South Mall at the University of Texas to a history center on campus, UT President Gregory L. Fenves announced Thursday.
The statues of three other Confederate figures — Robert E. Lee, Albert Sidney Johnston and John H. Reagan — will remain on the mall, along with those of President George Washington and James Stephen Hogg, the 20th governor of Texas. A statue of President Woodrow Wilson that stands opposite that of Davis will be moved to an outdoor site on campus yet to be determined in order to maintain symmetry on the mall.
The Davis statue will be refurbished for indoor display at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History after a planned renovation is finished.
“As a public university, it is vital that we preserve and understand our history and help our students and the public learn from it in meaningful ways,” said Fenves. “Jefferson Davis had few ties to Texas but played a unique role in the history of the American South that is best explained and understood through an educational exhibit. The Briscoe Center has the expertise to do that.”
Fenves’ decision came three days after an advisory panel he appointed said one or more statues of the Confederate leaders should be moved — with the Briscoe Center the favored destination — or that explanatory plaques be added to the current display amid the live oaks, lawn and sidewalks of the South Mall.
Pressure on UT to do something about the long-controversial statues had intensified since the slaying in June of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., in what authorities say was a racist attack by a white gunman who sympathized with the Confederacy. Three of the UT statues were tagged with graffiti after the attack. Protests against the statues date back decades, and UT’s Student Government adopted a resolution in March calling for moving Davis’ statue to a museum.
Fenves rejected the advisory panel’s recommendation to move, along with any statues, an inscription on a stone wall just west of the South Mall’s Littlefield fountain that pays tribute to the Confederacy and Southern patriotism. Instead, a university statement said officials would consider placing a plaque on the mall to provide historical context for the inscription and the remaining statues.
The UT president said he decided to leave the statues of Johnston, Reagan and Hogg on the mall because they had deep ties to Texas. As for Lee, his complicated legacy to Texas and the nation should not be reduced to his role in the Civil War, Fenves said in a news release.
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