The future of Confederate monuments should incorporate the views of many

In the shadow of the Tarrant County Courthouse, in the heart of downtown Fort Worth, there is an unremarkable marker dedicated to Confederate war dead and their descendants.

Erected in 1953 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, it has gone almost unnoticed and unacknowledged for years.

Had it not been for the recent display of racism in defense of a Confederate memorial in Charlottesville, Va., the marker might have continued its existence as an overlooked piece of our city and our nation’s difficult history.

But now, its future — and the future of scores of similar monuments throughout North Texas —is the subject of an important public debate: Do Confederate memorials have a place in modern America?

Like most Southern cities, Fort Worth will have to decide what to do with the physical memorials to its Confederate past.

That will mean determining what each of these monuments represents — its history, purpose and utility.

To some, this should be an easy task: Remove them all. The South lost. Its cause was unjust and commemorating the men and women who served it suggests at best a strange nostalgia for our checkered past and at worst that racism lingers even in our public spaces.

The events of Charlottesville illustrate there is truth in this argument.

Others see the monuments as history and ask what tearing them down will accomplish. They point to majority public support for keeping monuments and warn that destroying history will cause us to forget it and doom us to repeat it. Given the declining interest in history and civics, it’s hard to say they don’t have a point.

But monuments are subjective. They mean something different to everyone who views them. Dealing with them in a manner that respects our history — but satisfies contemporary realities and is sensitive to the feelings of diverse communities who support and oppose them — will require an approach that takes all perspectives into account.

It will be not be an easy task, but it’s a necessary one if our community is going to remain healthy and unified.

And the solution does not necessarily require tearing down all the monuments.

Some were meant to celebrate slaveholders or segregation. Others commemorate nameless soldiers whose lives were lost in a terrible war.

Some memorials were motivated by racial prejudice, erected as symbols of hatred or as warning to minorities. Others were erected with less diabolical intent.

Some later served as gathering places for groups that espoused racism. Others have become benign fixtures of town squares, barely given a passing thought by local residents.

All of these factors matter. The context, location, historical value, current meaning and the message a monument sends to residents and visitors all should be considered when deciding the future of memorials.

Dallas and other major cities have formed task forces for this specific purpose. These bodies have been most successful at mitigating a public backlash when their decision-making is open and transparent.

Fort Worth and its surrounding cities should consider doing the same.

A city task force could seek public input. It might choose to hold hearings. The more democratic the process the better. And the task force would best be able to study each individual monument and determine whether storing or moving it to private property or cemetery grounds is viable and appropriate.

There are other creative approaches. Confederate monuments could be augmented; markers describing their context and history might be added. They could be surrounded with other statues that commemorate leaders and groups of people who have gone without the public recognition they deserve — women, minorities and civil rights leaders.

What better represents American progress: Removing a statue of a Confederate general or placing next to it a monument to a hero of the African-American community?

Indeed, there is no one way to approach the issue. But so long as the process is intended to unify and not divide the community, many ways should be considered.

Texas must not tear down its past, but it must build a future that is inclusive to all. We challenge those leaders who can begin a deliberate process to work for this effort.

This story was originally published August 25, 2017 at 6:14 PM with the headline "The future of Confederate monuments should incorporate the views of many."