No Justice, No Peace

I've just read that three people have died.

For all the hand-wringing about preserving the memory of our forebears and the historic character of our cities when it comes to the Confederacy, Americans see things a little more clearly further from home.

4 May 1946

ALLIED CONTROL AUTHORITY
COORDINATING COMMITTEE

Legislation Dealing With the Liquidation of German Military and Nazi Memorials and Museums
Directive 30
The Control Council directs as follows:
I

On and after the date of this directive, the planning, designing, erection, installation, posting or other display of any monument, memorial, poster, statue, edifice, street or highway name marker, emblem, tablet, or insignia which tends to preserve and keep alive the German military tradition, to revive militarism or to commemorate the Nazi Party, or which is of such a nature as to glorify incidents of war, and the functioning of military museums and exhibitions, and the erection, installation, or posting or other display on a building or other structure of any of the same, will be prohibited and declared illegal; also the reopening of military museums and exhibitions.

I can't see it attracting the same size crowd, but the potential for violence seems great.

...

Key said participants will try to get as close to Wiginton’s event as possible. On Facebook, organizers proposed forming a “maroon wall” of students to block Wiginton’s message from the general public. A&M students used a similar strategy when the infamous Westboro Baptist Church protested a military funeral in College Station in 2012.

A&M officials, meanwhile, have been left frustrated and struggling to find a solution. As a public university, it's limited by the First Amendment in how it handles events on campus that it finds objectionable. The university hasn't publicly responded to the September plans. But in a Facebook post, A&M System Regent Tony Buzbee, a prominent Houston lawyer, said he has looked into whether the university could keep Wiginton from holding events on campus.

"Because we offer these facilities to the public for use, we cannot deny such use due to political ideology or speech content," Buzbee said. "The First Amendment allows speech like this, even though it is repugnant and wrong."

Ultimately, Buzbee said, Wiginton is seeking attention.

"He has never accomplished anything positive in his life and never will," Buzbee said. "It is a damn shame that our university, which sent more officers to fight the Nazis than all the service academies combined, would be tarnished by trash like him. But, in the end, the best way to deal with a lowlife like him is to ignore him."

I want the statues down.

Austin will begin the process of trying to change the name of Robert E. Lee Road in South Austin, City Council members said Tuesday, after recent white supremacist demonstrations in Charlottesville, Va, that turned violent.

City Council member Ann Kitchen, whose district includes the road, said she would bring forward an application to change the name of the road and ask the community to suggest alternatives. A renaming process would take months of reviewing the costs of the name change, the public safety implications and the opinions of the community.

“Seeing the hatred and the violence there, it should shake us all to our core,” she said. “It is incumbent on all of us in the country to stand up and say: This is not who we are.”

The Charlottesville white supremacist demonstrations came in response to plans there to remove a statue of Lee, the commanding Confederate general. Dozens were injured and a woman killed Saturday when a driver plowed his car into counter protesters opposing the white supremacist marchers.

The event spurred renewed conversations nationwide of removing monuments to Confederate leaders. In Austin, Robert E. Lee Road street signs were vandalized over the weekend. A petition to rename Robert E. Lee Road had more than 12,900 signatures as of Tuesday afternoon.

Other council members indicated they supported renaming Robert E. Lee Road. Mayor Steve Adler, who posted earlier on the day that it was time to rename the road, said he wanted “to state strongly and clearly that ours is a community where there is no place for hate.”

Council Member Greg Casar, who went to college in Charlottesville, pushed back against the common argument that removing Confederate names and monuments erases history. He argued that it instead corrects history.

Ultimately, Kitchen said, renaming the road would be a symbol.

“It’s an important, critical symbol,” she said. “But we can’t just change the name of a road and say, OK, we’ve fixed the problems in our community with regard to hatred and violence and racism.”