The city of Dallas, Texas had the statue of the Confederate General removed from a park in 2017 amid the fallout over violence in Charlottesville, Va. that summer. It sat in storage until it was bought by a law firm in an online auction for $1.44 million and then donated to the Lajitas Golf Resort in Terlingua, Texas. “I would say that of the 60-plus-thousand guests we host each year, we’ve had one or two negative comments,” said Scott Beasley of WSB Resorts and Clubs, which manages the property.
A statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee that the city of Dallas, Texas removed from a park and later sold in an online auction for $1.44 million is now on display at the Lajitas Golf Resort in Terlingua, Texas, ABC News reported, citing an article in the Houston (Texas) Chronicle.
The bronze sculpture, which was removed from the Dallas park in September 2017, is now at the 27,000-acre resort, which is privately owned by Dallas billionaire and pipeline mogul Kelcy Warren and managed by Scott Beasley, the president of Dallas-based WSB Resorts and Clubs, ABC News reported. The property received the statue as a donation in 2019.
The 1935 sculpture by Alexander Phimister Proctor was among several Lee monuments around the U.S. that were removed from public view amid the fallout over racial violence in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, ABC News reported. The artwork, which depicts Lee and another soldier on horses, was kept in storage at Dallas’ Hensley Field, the former Naval Air Station, until it was sold in 2019. A Dallas-based law firm, Holmes Firm PC, made the top offer for the sculpture, according to documents from the Dallas City Council.
Beasley told the Chronicle the statue serves no intent but to preserve “a fabulous piece of art.”
“I would say that of the 60-plus-thousand guests we host each year, we’ve had one or two negative comments,” he added.
Terlingua, which is in West Texas’ Brewster County near Big Bend National Park and the Rio Grande, has less than 100 residents and no record of Black residents, according to recent census data, ABC News reported. Black people make up just 1.7% of the population of Brewster County, according to census data.
But Black Lives Matter Houston activist Brandon Mack said he takes issue with supporters of Lee who argue that the statue is merely “an appreciation for art” and wonders whether the same defense would be used for other offensive symbols from throughout history, or if that’s reserved for iconography solely glorifying the oppression of Blacks, ABC News reported.
“We don’t glorify the swastika; we don’t have monuments [of] Adolf Hitler,” Mach said.
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