In an 11-4 vote, the council declared that the monument was “a non-contributing structure for the historic overlay district," and asked the city manager to ask the Landmark Commission to disassemble the monument, with $480,000 for its removal. The decision came after years of debate and little action on the city’s monuments to its pro-slavery Confederate past.
“We have to acknowledge the sins of the past, and what kind of Dallas do we want going forward,” Mayor Pro Tem Thomas said. “Today is not unfinished business. It’s finishing the business that we started.”
The monument, a 65-foot obelisk topped with a Confederate soldier and ringed by statues of Confederate leaders Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Albert Johnston, was moved to the cemetery in 1961.
At www.dallasnews.com
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