Dallas Landmark Commission Decision Appealed

According to a posting on the Dallas Chapter No. 6, United Daughters of the Confederacy, Facebook page, a member,  as an individual has filed an official appeal to the Dallas City Planning Commission regarding the Landmarks Commission vote that the the Confederate War Memorial in Pioneer Park wasn't a part of the historical overlay.

https://www.facebook.com/dallas6udc/posts/10157052922156310

They had 30 days to make the appeal of the March 4th decision and the dead line would be April 4th.

There wasn't a need to go through the Landmark Commission as I explain in this posting.

https://dallaslandscape.blogspot.com/2019/02/dallas-city-council-doesnt-have-to-have.html

I don't know how long the appeal process will take. After the appeal with the Dallas City Planning Commission is exhausted, I wonder if a lawsuit could then be filed. Or could their be an appeal to the Dallas City Council?

You might say that the Dallas City Council voted for this to go before the Landmark Commission and they did. That doesn't mean there isn't some municipal code for an appeal of the Dallas City Planning Commission decisions. It could be another delay of another month maybe. The Dallas City Council could change their mind again on this monument. They have once in the last year.

While all these delays are in progress will the state of Texas make a law preventing the removal of Confederate monuments.

I have privately stated that I didn't think it was a done deal on the removal of the Confederate monument and that there were some potential things that could derail the removal of the monument as the Dallas City Council has chosen to do it. I don't know if the process has been derailed yet, but I will be watching closely. Maybe the process of removal just need to be delayed long enough for the Texas state legislature to pass a law blocking the removal of the monuments.

However, what ever the series of events might be, if the monument isn't gone at some point, the boycott of Dallas begins.

Billboard in Kaufman County near Kemp, Texas is really only visible in media stories about the billboard

There have been multiple stories about a billboard put up in Kaufman County next to Kemp, Texas.

It has gotten some coverage across the state of Texas and national as well as locally in the DFW area.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/texas/article/Texas-billboard-backs-Confederate-heritage-13705747.php

https://www.miamiherald.com/sports/article228219704.html

https://foxsanantonio.com/news/local/controversial-billboard-in-north-texas

(Note: After photo documenting the billboard I visited the Kaufman County Courthouse. This is my blog about the Confederate Injustice center there. https://newtknight.blogspot.com/2019/03/kaufman-county-confederate-injustice.html#.XJam1pg2qiP)

This is what it looks like next to the South bound lane. The billboard faces south. What you notice is that the bottom billboard is in disrepair. It is abandoned and we will see why with the next picture.

The highway north and south bound lanes in this section are very widely seperated. So this is the view of the billoard headed north. As you can see, unless you knew the billboard was there, you would not likely even notice it, and even if you saw it you would need binoculars to see what the billboard was trying to express.

You would get somewhat closer headed further north along the highway but you would be looking at the billboard sideways and not be able to read it. If you were driving south you would have to be looking for it in your  rearview mirror.

That is likely why the other billboard is in disrepair. There is no need for it since no one would use it.

The billboard only functions in news stories about it.  That hasn't kept the city of Kemp, Texas from wanting it gone. They have passed a resolution against it and pointed out that it violates the use of a graphics of the Mavericks sport team. It is a small town, I drove through it and there aren't a lot of people. They don't have money and I am thinking they are hoping the Mavericks pay for the attorney.

A small town like this often dreams of some business locating a factory or facility there to keep the town from dying and a billboard like this is not a help at all for that.

http://www.fox4news.com/news/kemp-officials-expect-dallas-mavericks-to-take-action-on-controversial-confederate-billboard

No this isn't Fair Park. Art Deco in the service of white supremacy.

I have purchased this item and it will be delivered at some point. Notice how the illustration looks like Fair Park.

Art Deco exists in the time of European Imperialism and white supremacy in the United States. It would be naive to assume that though it bills itself as progressive that it somehow exists isolated from the social context in which it exists.

The Fair Park 1936 Centennial materials repeatedly use the word "empire." It wants to locate itself with the other empires of the time.

The Empire Exhibition is nearly the same time as the 1936 Texas Centennial.  Both events promoted a white supremacist understanding of history and the world. Not surprisingly the architecture is similar.

Follow up letter to the Equal Justice Initiative about Dallas and Hatton W. Sumners

To be the background for this letter look at the blog postings with the  Hatton W. Sumners label.

I wrote them another letter which is as follows.

                                                                                    March 1, 2019

                                                                                    Edward H. Sebesta

                                                                                   

                                                                                    edwardsebesta@gmail.com

Jerome Gray

Chairman of the Board

Equal Justice Initiative

122 Commerce Street

Montgomery, Alabama 36104

Dear Mr. Gray:

I am again writing you to very be careful that you do not inadvertently collude with the City of Dallas in its ongoing incompetence in confronting its past.  Specifically, its failure to recognize Dallas’s special history regarding lynching and its possible use of a memorial element to obscure its historical past or obscure its incompetence in addressing the historical past.

As you know Hatton W. Sumners was a leading opponent of federal anti-lynching laws in the first half of the 20^th century. His opposition is one of the reasons a federal anti-lynching law wasn’t passed until 2018.  His speeches, one in 1922 and one in 1937, in opposition to federal anti-lynching legislation are vile. I am still transcribing them and will put them online at some point. I will announce them on my blog, https://dallaslandscape.blogspot.com/.

Yet Dallas honors Hatton W. Sumners. The Red Museum, in Dallas has a 4^th floor Hatton W. Sumners Court Room.  I have pictures in my blog posting https://dallaslandscape.blogspot.com/2019/03/hatton-w-sumners-court-room-at-red.html.   There is also the Hatton W. Sumners Foundation with their web page http://www.hattonsumners.org/index.htm. Even a cursory Google search will show that the most of the institutions of higher learning and others have involvements with the Hatton W. Sumners Foundation.

Every year many students are going to Hatton W. Sumners functions unaware.

This is aided by the historical institutions of the state of Texas. In the Texas State Historical Association entry for Hatton W. Sumners there is absolutely no mention of his role in blocking federal anti-lynching legislation. This is the link to their entry for him: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fsu04.

The Hatton W. Sumners Court Room and the Hatton W. Sumners Foundation are just two items I have discovered so far on the Dallas built and very racialized landscape. I am still in progress and further discoveries might be made. You might have to consider that a sister memorial might be next to a Hatton W. Sumners item.

I think the City of Dallas very likely would use the Equal Justice Institute sister monuments as a façade to cover up its past and to construct a narrative how good Dallas is now in contrast to its past.

I hope the Equal Justice Institute doesn’t enable the City of Dallas in its failure to acknowledge its past.

                                                                                    Sincerely Yours,

                                                                                    Edward H. Sebesta

CC: Eva Ansley, Secretary/Treasurer; Ophelia Dahl; Scott Douglas, Executive Director; Dr. Paul Farmer; Dr. Randy Hertz; George Kendall; Dr. Martha Morgan; Byran Stevenson; Kim Taylor-Thompson; Kathy Vincent; and Carlos Williams, Executive Director

Informational Page on Hatton W. Sumners with text of both his speeches against federal anti-lynching legislations in 1922 and 1937.

HATTON W. SUMNER WEB PAGE WITH ALL THE INFORMATION.

We are starting a campaign against the honoring of a notorious Dallas racist, Hatton W. Sumner.

This page has the text of Sumners' 1922 and 1937 speech against federal anti-lynching legislation as well as some biographical and background information document.

Additionally there is a slide show of the Hatton W. Sumner Court Room.

http://templeofdemocracy.com/hatton-w-sumners.html

Use the labels to look at the earlier postings on Hatton W. Sumners.

UNFINISHED TASKS

It might be thought that with the Confederate War Memorial in Pioneer Park being removed that the tasks of de-racializing the Dallas landscape is over.

In fact there is a lot of issues with the Dallas landscape to be dealt with.

I give this brief list.  These are the known issues at this time. More might be discovered. Notice that on the list there is the Hatton W. Sumners Court Room at the Red Museum. This is new.


1. The replica Arlington House in Oak Lawn built to glorify Robert E. Lee and the Confederacy.

This needs to stop being a building to glorify Robert E. Lee and be a location for weddings. Perhaps it could be a museum on slavery in Texas.

2. Many DISD schools named after Confederates and other white supremacists.

There are quite a few schools that need to be renamed.

3. Two minor Confederate monuments in Oak Lawn Park.

One of the monuments is to so-called Black Confederates and makes the city a laughing stock. I had given information on both monuments to the Confederate Monument Task Force, but that farcical body didn't do anything with the information.

4. The whole Fair Park is an assemblage of white supremacist art and architecture.

I have a Word Document and a PowerPoint presentation on this, but both need to be updated. I have discovered that many exhibitions, fairs, expositions, etc. in the early 20th century  are about systems of white supremacy  and futher Art Deco is used in these other events to support white supremacy. I am currently doing reading and then will rewrite the Word Document and do a Power Point.

5. Hatton W. Sumners honored at the Red Museum.

Sumners is a racist monster. He was a leader in the opposition to federal anti-lynching legislation and also was opposed to all civil rights legislation of any type. For more information there is this blog posting.

https://dallaslandscape.blogspot.com/2019/03/hatton-w-sumners-court-room-at-red.html

Turns out that the Texas Tribune took money from the Hatton W. Sumners Foundation in 2018 and not 2019. Their web page was confused. However this blog posting gives a lot of information about him and how the Texas historical establishment has covered it up.

https://dallaslandscape.blogspot.com/2019/02/asking-texas-tribune-to-give-back.html

6. Many streets named after Confederates, white supremacists, and one after Nathan Bedford Forrest.

There are many streets that need renaming. We need to also consider repartions of the landscape. I have done a great deal of research about both names and the struggles to rename streets after minority civil rights leaders. People don't think it is important, but the reality is that these struggles show how fiercely the resistance against the loss of the white landscape is.

This map is from the Dallas County records. When city staff said they couldn't find evidence I had to wonder how hard they looked or who did they depend on. There are Dallas Morning News advertisments which give a "Forrest" address in Dallas.



7. Exclude Lost Cause jurors from Jury duty.

The article with the proposal to exclude from jury duty those who believe in the Lost Cause is online at Black Commentator.

http://www.blackcommentator.com/507/507_confederacy_jury_selection_sebesta_hague_guests_share.html

8. There is the John Neely Bryan monument stone in Pioneer Park. It isn't a tombstone.

9. There is the DISD history books which give the Confederacy a free pass.

There is likely more things to be discovered.

As to where it will all end. I don't know, I suppose when the landscape is deracialized.

Neo-Confederate goes bonkers

The Landmark Commission voted 10 to 5 to rule the Confederate Monument was not part of some technicality so it could be removed.

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/dallas/2019/03/04/confederate-war-memorial-one-step-closer-coming-dallas-landmark-commission-approves-removal

At the end there was some entertainment when a neo-Confederate went bonkers. They really are outraged that their little delusions are no longer taken seriously.

https://youtu.be/tkkhCNcCntM

I did hand out to all the Landmark Commission members a 159 page history of the monument. If they had voted against renewal I wanted them to know what they were supporting.  I also wanted them to know that I do fairly deep research and get the word out and about that I do so.

This rather surprising argument was given by Donald Payton, the only African American member of the Landmark Commission.

Donald Payton, the only black member of the Landmark Commission, said it was beyond time for the memorial’s removal. He said Dallas will still have streets, building and schools that honor those who fought for the Confederacy. 

“If they think [this memorial is] the only thing in this city that’s a memory to the Confederate dead, we’ve got more than enough,” Payton said.

Of course we will be going after the streets and buildings and schools. The John H. Reagan school needs to be changed and since Austin ISD changed theirs, I will be writing Dallas ISD to get their John H. Reagan school changed. I have been writing up the history of the wretch individuals for whom some schools are named.

You also got to see the Old Guard of Dallas cultural institutions show up. It is good that they learned that they don't count anymore and are relics of the past. Former Landmark Commission Chair Reaves-Poggi you are a relic of racist Dallas.

Hatton W. Sumners Court room at the Red Museum, Dallas glorifies white supremacist.

I had an earlier posting about the Hatton W. Sumners Foundation and how Dallas has erased the fact that Hatton W. Sumners was a blistering racist and made him some type of hero.

This is the link to the earlier posting. The back story on how the Texas State Historical Association and the Hatton W. Sumners foundation have erased Sumners role in defeating federal anti-lynching legislation is stated there.

https://dallaslandscape.blogspot.com/2019/02/asking-texas-tribune-to-give-back.html

While I doing research I stumbled across the Hatton W. Sumner Court Room at the Red Museum in downtown Dallas.

The building is under rennovation.

The court room is on the 4th floor and I was told it was for marriage ceremonies by judges and for mock trials for students.

There is not explanation who Hatton W. Sumners was. The best I can tell it was designated the Hatton W. Sumners court room in 2005.

The Hatton W. Sumners Foundation was a donor to the Red Museum.

The Red Museum is the old county building.

This is the plaque at the entrance to the court room.

People are getting married in that court room and having the name of a rabid racist added to their life's story attached to their marriage and that the story of lynching in the 20th century is being attached to the story of their marriage.

Students are being given the idea that Hatton W. Sumners is some type of hero.

These are some pictures of the court room. It is very impressive showing that Hatton W. Sumners is being really honored by having the court room named after him.

From back of the court room. 

From the Front. 

What you don't see in these pictures is that the court room has two side rooms which are impressive also. In the front view photo the door to the left is the entry. In the view from the back the entry is on the right.

I am going to finish getting Hatton W. Sumners' speeches finished transcribed from the Congressional Record and I will do a blog posting on them and will also put a link to all the Hatton W. Sumners related postings in this blog.