On the statue taken out of Love Field:
First, we’re discussing this with information most of us just learned. We’re not talking about what we didn’t know in the past; it’s about what we know now.
What we know now is the person depicted in the statue, Sgt. E.J. “Jay” Banks, stood with white students at Mansfield High in 1956 (the scene of the photo I’ve included). A mob had gathered to prevent the integration of the school, students yelling threats while a dummy in blackface hung from a noose. Banks did nothing to disperse the crowd. The black students were intimidated away from enrolling.
Banks was later sent to Texarkana Junior College, where a young black woman and young black man were trying to attend. Another mob gathered, and this time they surrounded the young man and kicked him. Banks and his Rangers did nothing. Again, the black students were forced to retreat.
The above information was from an article by Doug J. Swanson, author of Cult of Glory. See the article here: http://dmagazine.com/…/texas-rangers-love-field-statue…/
If you are now informed and still see the statue as simply a monument to the Texas Rangers, please consider that to be a privilege. It is a privilege that you can see this statue without feeling pain from the history of this law enforcement leader enabling racism through inaction.
I get that the statue is history. And I get that we shouldn’t try to erase it. But there are places for things like this, like museums, where we INTENTIONALLY go to learn and put ourselves through discomfort in order to grow. People of color do not need these images in front of our faces in unsolicited public settings. People not of color also do not need these images in this way – all you have to do instead is listen to your brothers and sisters and seek out ways to better educate yourself.
If we’re leaving up statues that glorify people and ideas associated with racism, oppression, and segregation, just because “it’s history,” then why don’t we also have old Colored signs hanging above bathrooms and water fountains? It’s just history and we need to learn to deal with it, right?
Look, any statue of anybody in the history of the world is going to be a statue of an imperfect person, other than Jesus. But our stories and defining moments leave legacies. And legacies, the people and ideas surrounding those legacies, is what we are honoring in statues. In this case, the legacy we are honoring is one not of an ally.
If you read the article, you may notice the statue was commissioned in 1959, and I don’t know what the sculptor did or did not know about Banks at the time. This is about what we know now. It is time to remove this symbol of oppression, that it is no longer a centerpiece that welcomes so many people into our city.