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Ever since the San Antonio Confederate statue monument was removed from Travis Park in the early morning hours of Sept. 1, 2017, the whereabouts of the statue has been a secret and out of view of the public. But after eight years in storage, the controversial sculpture will be back again for viewing.
The city has agreed to donate the monument to the SS American Memorial Foundation, based in Seguin.
Craig Russell, the founder and operator of SS American, said the San Antonio monument will be part of a collection of other Confederate monuments from across Texas. He said he’s working with the Daughters of the Confederacy to locate and facilitate the assembling of the collection.
“We've got a couple of others from Dallas and the little one from New Braunfels. I think Houston has some in storage, and I know Dallas has some in storage and trying to get all of them,” Russell told Texas Public Radio.
The San Antonio Confederate monument was removed during a national debate following the 2015 Charleston church shooting and then the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The violence and public attention around those events galvanized many cities to reconsider Confederate symbols in public spaces. San Antonio officials explicitly cited the Charlottesville rally as one of the reasons they acted quickly.
Russell said he didn’t have a stance on the removal of the monument in 2017.
“No, I paid no attention. Heck, they took it down so fast I didn’t have time to think about it,” he said.
The SS American Memorial Foundation’s stated mission is “to memorialize and honor the sacrifices of all those who have rendered loyal, faithful, heroic, and self-sacrificing service at home and overseas, while members of our armed forces or through civilian capacity.”
Russell said the "SS" in the name of his organization stands for "submarine service." Russell is a veteran who served on a United States Navy submarine.
According to the SS American Memorial Foundation website, the non-profit works to help military and civilian families with burdens caused by separation or other hardships, especially through assistance for basic needs, patriotic and historical educational programs, and fellowship.
A statement from the City of San Antonio said officials have been in discussions with Russell for two years before entering into an agreement to donate the monument, which includes the statue of a Confederate soldier and the two-story pedestal that occupied the center of Travis Park for over a century. The cannons that were also in the park are not included in the agreement.
Former San Antonio City Council member and civil rights activist Mario Salas, a dominant voice in the call for removal of the Confederate Monument from Travis Park, said he welcomed the city’s decision to make the donation. “Not a bad idea—put them all in one place,” he said.
“I’d rather see them in one place, rather than see them scattered all over the place because they represent hatred, they represent slavery, they represent all the things this nation doesn’t need to stand for. So, if the people who still don’t understand the history of the Civil War, if they want to go look at those things, then have at it,” Salas said.
Russell rejects the idea that collecting the Confederate monuments at his Lazy U Ranch outside of Seguin perpetuates racial hatred. He said his objective is to teach history.
“At the end of the day, the Civil War is the greatest conflict, and that's what we teach out here. It is the conflict that sets the standard for our country where we are today. Right, wrong or indifferent. And that's what you see in the memorial. You see American history, you see the sacrifice,” he said.
However, Rivka Maizlish of the Southern Poverty Law Center said the history told by the Confederate monuments is from the point of view of the “Lost Cause.”
“Not only are they offensive, they're symbols of white supremacy. They're symbols of a struggle to fight against the United States of America to defend slavery. But they also represent or are part of a massive propaganda campaign to rewrite history to erase the true meaning of the Civil War and the horrors of slavery,” she said.
Maizlish said the monuments were generally erected during the era of Jim Crow in the South “with an aim to propagandize and to rewrite the true history of the Civil War. So this is clearly just an extension of that long-lost cause propaganda campaign."
Maizlish added that pulling these monuments out of storage, placing them back in view — even in a private park — isn’t a benign action.
Even though the collection of Confederate monuments will be on private property, it doesn’t mean the public won’t be viewing them. Russell said he plans on having private and public schools come to the property to learn about history.
In its statement, the City of San Antonio made clear it didn’t need to seek local public input on the donation based on the original August 31, 2017 ordinance that approved the removal and storage of the monument. “That ordinance also authorized staff to negotiate and execute a donation agreement with a non-profit with a mission related to historic preservation or education,” the statement said.
The city said it was satisfied that the SS American Memorial Foundation would not repurpose the monument to promote pro-Confederacy or a radical right agenda.
“The City evaluated the entity’s mission to serve the current and active military and their proposal to display the monument in a sculpture garden within a respite center,” read the statement. “The organization committed to displaying the monument with appropriate context.”
The SS American Foundation has yet to take possession of the monument. That is expected to happen sometime next month.
