Confederate Markers and Place Names

For the third straight legislative session, state Rep. Jarvis Johnson, D-Houston, has filed a bill to end Confederate Heroes Day as a state holiday.

The Baylor Board of Regents approved a four-step plan to change the name of a campus quadrangle named after a slave-owning former university president and add more elements to provide a better representation of Baylor’s history.

Years after the city of Dallas decided to take down statues honoring Confederate soldiers and leaders, it’s still fighting court battles over their removal. That information comes from an annual report released by the City Attorney’s office on Tuesday.

History professor Michael Phillips is now the third teacher in the past year to sue Collin College. Like the other two whose contracts were not renewed, he says the college routinely violates faculty free speech rights. The college disagrees.

The professor alleges the school violated his First Amendment rights when he advocated for the removal of Confederate statues and criticized the college’s COVID-19 plans.

In 2017, debate over Charlottesville's Robert E. Lee statue sparked a violent neo-Nazi rally that left a woman dead. Now, a Black cultural center wants to melt it down and turn it into public art.

The bronze sculpture, which was removed from the Dallas park in September 2017, is now at the Lajitas Golf Resort in Terlingua, Texas,

The legislation also calls for the removal of a bust of former Chief Justice Roger Taney, author of the infamous Dred Scott decision that declared Black Americans weren't U.S. citizens.

The movement to remove Confederate monuments and depictions of historical figures who mistreated Native Americans became part of the national reckoning over racial injustice following George Floyd’s death last year in Minneapolis. While many have been removed — or torn down by protesters — it’s proven difficult to remove those that remain.

According to the latest UT/TT Poll, most Texas voters support expanded gambling and would legalize marijuana. Half would leave Confederate statues and monuments where they are. And they're divided on whether to change state abortion laws or leave them as is.

There are 99 state prisons and jails in the state, and several of which are named after people with racist and sometimes violent histories, according to The Marshall Project.