AUSTIN (KXAN) – The University of Texas at Austin has removed an inscription honoring the Confederacy on its South Mall.
The removal in July came almost a year after a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis was controversially relocated to the Briscoe Center for American History.
UT President Gregory Fenves decided in the spring of 2016 that the inscription had to go, after initially saying it would stay, according to the university.
The inscription read as follows:
To the men and of the women of the Confederacy who fought with valor and suffered with fortitude
that states’ rights be maintained and who not dismayed by defeat nor discouraged by misrule builded
from the ruins of a devastating war a greater South. And to the men and women of the nation who
gave their possessions and of their lives that free government be made secure to the peoples of the
earth, this memorial is dedicated.
The Descendants of Confederate Veterans “vehemently oppose and protest” the removal of the inscription, saying it was done with no consideration for the memory and sacrifices of the Confederate men, women and children to whom the statue is dedicated.
The organization says they fully support the university’s efforts to promote racial, ethnic and cultural diversity as long as Confederate cultural heritage is “not forgotten, diminished or neglected.”
“Black Lives Matter” was spray painted on the inscription last month.