AUSTIN, Texas — Texas has removed the most Confederate symbols and statues in the country since 2015, according to a new Southern Poverty Law Center study.
- Texas leads with 31 removals followed by Virginia with 14
- State still maintains 68 symbols
- Fort Hood named for Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood
According to the report, various Texas cities removed 31 symbols, which include statues and renaming of schools and streets.
“We’ve seen a remarkable effort to remove Confederate monuments from the public square, yet the impact has been limited by a strong backlash among many with Southerners who still cling to the myth of the ‘Lost Cause’ and the revisionist history that these monuments represent,” Heidi Beirich, director of the SPLC Intelligence Project, said in the report.
Austin took the lead, with the removal of 10 symbols, the majority of them on the UT campus. While Houston renamed seven schools and one street, the Houston Chronicle said.
The rest of the list is Virginia (14), Florida (9), Tennessee (8), Georgia (6), Maryland (6), North Carolina (5) and Oklahoma (5). Eighty-two removals were in former Confederate states.
Despite the removals, SPLC said 1,728 Confederate symbols remain — 772 monuments, 100 public schools named after Lee, 80 counties and cities named after Confederate figures and nine paid holidays for state employees in five states. Fort Hood in Texas is also one of 10 U.S. military bases named after Confederate fighters.
And despite having removed the largest number of monuments to date, the report also said Texas still has 68 Confederate monuments, one of the highest nationwide. Georgia (115), Virginia (108) and North Carolina (97) are the top three.