FORT WORTH, Texas – Officials in two North Texas counties voted Tuesday to remove Confederate monuments from their courthouse grounds.
Commissioners of Tarrant and Denton counties voted Tuesday to remove the monuments.
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The Tarrant County monument had been erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1953. Commissioner Roy Brooks proposed its removal, saying he “would argue that it’s not a memorial at all, rather that it was erected in 1953 as a reminder to the black citizens of this county and of this state that the rules of Jim Crow were still in effect.”
Tarrant commissioners voted 4-0 with one abstention for the removal.
The Denton County monument was erected by the Daughters of the Confederacy in 1918.
Commissioners of both counties said their actions were taken to promote racial harmony amid protests of the killing of George Floyd, a black man, by a white Minneapolis police officer.
“There is an overwhelming sense that the deep consciousness of America has been touched by events in recent weeks,” Denton County Judge Andy Eads, leader of the commissioners court, said of protests against police brutality and systemic racism.
Both counties said their monuments would be placed in storage until alternate sites could be found.