Robin Terrazas remembers briefly speaking with Mayor Ron Nirenberg the night before City Council voted 10-1 to remove the 118-year-old Confederate Monument from Travis Park.
It was the only interaction that Terrazas – president of the Albert Sidney Johnston chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy – had with the mayor after repeated attempts to start a dialogue on the future of the group’s property: the monument.
“I said let’s work together on this,” Terrazas said. “He looked me in the eye, he shook my hand, and he said ‘yes, we will include you.’ And he never contacted me. No one from the City ever did.”
Nirenberg declined to comment on her claim because of pending litigation, a spokesperson said.
Now the chapter is suing the City of San Antonio and 10 of its City Council members in federal court for its decision to remove the monument from Travis Park in September. The group argues that its rights under the Fifth and 14th amendments of the U.S. Constitution were violated when the City removed the statue overnight, failing to give them due process.
The statue was originally erected in 1899 by the Barnard E. Bee chapter of the Confederacy group for $3,000. The suit claims that a City ordinance dating back to March 27, 1899 gave the chapter perpetuity over the land to be used for their monument. In 1972, the Barnard E. Bee chapter closed due to declining membership, and transferred their property and interests to the Albert Sidney Johnston chapter.
“State and local governments cannot take property, life, and liberty from citizens without due process,” said Thomas Crane, the attorney representing the chapter in Albert Sidney Johnston Chapter v. Nirenberg. “There has to be some process to do that, not just somebody’s arbitrary decision.”
The suit claims that Nirenberg “abbreviated the normal process” of bringing a Council Consideration Request to a vote when he superseded a governance committee review and put the motion directly to a Council vote on Aug. 31. Bypassing the governance committee also meant that the Historic Design and Review Commission did not review the request.
Councilman Clayton Perry (D10), who cast the sole vote against removing the monument, is not named as a defendant in the suit. Perry said at the time that he wanted to see “a more robust community dialogue.”
City officials and Council members declined to comment on the pending litigation.
Terrazas said the council did not include her group in community discussions as promised when it began considering the monument’s removal in July. Since the monument’s removal, the chapter has not been told where their monument is being stored or information about its condition.
The chapter also is seeking compensation for the alleged violation of due process rights.
“We would like to see the monument put back up,” Terrazas said. “We want it put up at the City’s expense, and we want it to be put in a place that we can agree on with the City. We also would like our time capsule contents returned.”
According to an article published on June 4, 1899 in the San Antonio Sunday Light, a time capsule was buried on the site when the monument foundation was laid. The report states that a roster of the Barnard E. Bee chapter was placed inside along with several Confederate bills and coins; a Confederate flag bearing the name of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy; pressed flowers from the coffin of Winnie Davis, the daughter of Jefferson Davis; some daily newspapers; and an Old Testament Bible used by an imprisoned Southerner. Terrazas said the City has not divulged any information about the capsule’s whereabouts.
“We were robbed of the opportunity for a ceremonial opening of the time capsule,” Terrazas said.
The group seeks reimbursement along with the return of the monument. The suit says the group is seeking more than $75,000 for compensation of actual, compensatory, and punitive damages.
Debate over the monument began only months after Nirenberg won the mayoral race. Some memorials dedicated to the Confederacy, and to the soldiers that fought for it, were removed across the county following the death of nine black church goers in a June 2015 shooting in Charleston, South Carolina. More were removed after protests defending Confederate monuments in Charlottesville, Virginia, turned violent in August 2017.
On Oct. 27, the Texas Tribune reported that Governor Greg Abbott was supportive of a motion to remove a controversial Confederate plaque from the Texas Capitol.
According to records shared with the Rivard Report, there are currently six markers in San Antonio providing information on historic Civil War locations in the city (see photo gallery below).
Terrazas said that the chapter believes the monument that was in Travis Park was not a monument to white supremacy or slavery, but to the common soldier and veteran that fought for their state and country. An inscription on the monument reads “Lest We Forget Our Confederate Dead,” which the suit states are lines taken from a Rudyard Kipling poem.
Crane said that the chapter’s federal lawsuit could last for years to come.
“The Daughters did everything they’re supposed to do to avoid a lawsuit,” Crane said.
The Daughters of Nazi Veterans want to put up a statue to their dead, too.
Due process is very important so all sides can voice their concerns and decision makers can be better informed. Does not surprise this happen. Now you and me will be footing the legal bill. Sad!
Oh, where, in Germany? Where they’re from? Then they can discuss it with their Prime Minister AND NOT HERE.
I believe you meant Chancellor.
Congratulations! You win the Godwin Award for the day. Godwin’s Law states that “Whoever makes a Nazi comparison first has automatically lost the debate.
The city was bullied into removing the statue. Like it or not, the Confedercy is part of our Texas history. Just like the historic marker in the Rio Grande valley, La Matanza, recognizes the many deaths of Mexicans at the hand of the Texas Rangers aka Los Rinches. ” The past can not be changed. It is up to us to shape the future”.
“Lest we forget” comes from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “Recessional”. “Our Confederate Dead” is not part of that poem. It is on the other side of the monument’s base. I would prefer to see a monument to the Civil War dead – ALL of them.
Good for her and all Confederate Veterans who died in the war! They deserve to be remembered just as any other Veteran and the monument should be replaced at the city’s expense along with personal apologies from each of the board members who voted or took part in removing the monument! #SistersUnite
Good for her and all Confederate Veterans who died in the war! They deserve to be remembered just as any other Veteran and the monument should be replaced at the city’s expense along with personal apologies from each of the board members who voted or took part in removing the monument! #SistersUnite
Good for her! They shouldn’t be taking our Texas war monuments down! Shame on them! Now the tax payers are going to have to pay for it.
A MINORITY created this Confederafobia Hysteria, SO, let the Council members pay! Either way the tax payers paid to have it removed. The Confederate Veteran is BY LAW a Veteran.
The South needs more feminine pluck like this lady of true backbone. The DCV Chapters nationally need to not buckle under and move or let monuments be removed! But, while due process is a good approach to attacking high handed tyranny. The lawyers need to amend their complaint to include the DCV’s First Amendment rights, that were also abridged. A statue or monument is an expression and the words on it are free speech and writing. They can not be constrained or censured. To move or remove a monument to a place less prominent is to diminish their meaning and substance and disparage their intention, particularly if the monument is one to the memory of Veterans who fought and died in war. Not only should individuals be sued in this matter, but criminal charges should be made against them in respect to the the DCV’s property. Moving the monument was an assault against private property by the state and is protected under the Forth Amendment, but can also be criminally charged, which will cost the DCV less in legal fees and can get far better results if individuals are convicted, forced to pay restitution or jailed. Criminal charges will send a real message. Many political bodies have sovereign immunity from civil action, but not from violations of law.
The UDC is an organization of female white supremacists. They support the false historical narrative of “The Lost Cause”, a program of indoctrination and Civil War historical spin so successful that the twisted and immoral narrative it advanced is still used to oppose righting the wrongs of racial injustice. They are bad for the country and for the South. It’s time to do what’s right and acknowledge historical truth and the injustice that still exists.
Vox covers or less the same facts in a short video here.
If anyone behaved like Nazis, it was the Union soldiers who waged war against civilians from 1861 to 1865. Abraham Lincoln imprisoned over 30,000 journalists who were critical of his administration. He also presided over the genocide of countless thousands of Native Americans. Please tell me again who the Nazis were!
We are so sick of this racebaiting narrative……how many bigoted idiots can be elected at one time….answer….”just as many as the city council can use”….so sad……
Speak for yourself, Bob. I am not part of your “we” in this instance. You made it about race.
No, he didn’t. That distinction goes to Beegowl, “the UDC is an organization of female white supremacists”….
I was against removing the confederate solder in Travis Park and all the other changes that were made because some people were offended. Leave history alone. Who are they to make these changes. I & 80% of San Antonio’s citizens objected to Durango Blvd. being changed to Cesar Chavez. That didn’t make any difference to Council. Now they are considering painting certain crosswalks with gay pride colors. Has Council gone mad. LEAVE THINGS ALONE!!!!
Yeah, let’s put things back the way they used to be! Revoke women’s and minorities’ right to vote! Make black people count for 3/5th of a person in the census! Give Texas back to Mexico!
Change is bad!!!!
Wake up people! The statue was erected in 1899!!!! It is the HISTORY of it that matters. It is NOT about race. Too many trouble makers and not enough common sense in this debate. Whatever it takes, you go girl!
If your belief is about history, then I highly urge you to look into the propaganda the UDC has continued to spread in the south through revised history books. By claiming the statues were about history is what the UDC wants you to continue to say.
You forget that the history books are largely written by the victors, not the vanquished.
It really hurts my feelings that all of our past History of United States is being torn down because of one group out of so many different race of people have the power to take down the History of our fore fathers Veterans who gave their lives in building this beautiful Country. We are destroy our Country from with-in.
And what do we have in the time capsule? It’s treason and slavery! My it hasn’t aged well.
Great! I hope the UDC wins the suit. I always enjoyed visiting Travis Park and the beautiful Monument to the common foot soldier from Texas in the CS Army.
We had a lovely creation of art removed (at tax-payers’ expense), and now our leaders want our tax-payers to pay thousands for more art. Put the monument back which honors our Confederate dead, and leave the art honoring our Texas dead in front of the Alamo where it is! These monuments depict our history; don’t try to hide our history.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy was a significant leader of the “Lost Cause,” an intellectual movement that revised history to look more favorably on the South after the American Civil War. They were women from elite antebellum families that used their social and political clout to fundraise and pressure local governments to erect monuments that memorialized Confederate heroes. They also formed textbook review committees that monitored what Southern schoolchildren learned about the war. Their influential work with children created a lasting memory of the Confederate cause, and those generations grew up to be the segregationists of the Jim Crow Era in the South.
No one is tearing down history. We are just don’t want to pay tribute to traitors. These people fought to maintain slavery. Why in the world would we name a school or a street after these people? They are the worst examples of humanity.
Hitler is still part of history, but there certainly are no statues of him or schools named after him.
The Union fought the civil war with the goal of unifying the country once again; treating the former confederates as traitors would have undermined that goal. Former Confederate soldiers were eventually recognized as US veterans, and some of them joined the US military in the years after the civil war. The memorial, designed by a single woman artist (reportedly the first woman do so in this country) was partially paid for and deticated by former Unionists as a unifying gesture towards their countrymen, who had once been enemies, but were countrymen once more.
Mayor Nirenburg and the San Antonio City Council, save Perry, spent over $250,000 of tax payer dollars to remove a memorial and time capsule the city did not own, from property they did not own, and are currently keeping said stolen property from it’s rightful owners. Everyone should object to the City of San Antonio seizing private property without due process of law.
These people are tools of the bankers, the Walton’s, the Koch brothers and so on. They are traitors and these statues need to be seen as what they are, traitorous.
Citizens of San Antonio who appreciate history and art should remember the HOUSTON monument removal when voting time comes around. The city does not need these unethical, fraudulent, and in my opinion, ignorant people on the city council!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also remember Mayor Ron Nirenberg’s roll in this outrageous miscarriage of justice against the citizens of San Antonio.