This blog is going to be inactive. Go to Dallas Landscape blog

This blog is going to be inactive. For continuing developments on de-racializing the Dallas landscape go to the blog https://dallaslandscape.blogspot.com/

Letter to Mayor Rawlings about Frances Cudjoe Waters being chosen to head a task force concerning the Confederate monuments

A copy of the letter was sent FedEx to all 14th city council members. I don't think Rev. Waters should head up the task force unless she can speak to the United Methodist Church (UMC) hosting neo-Confederate groups.

This is the letter:

                                                                    September 3, 2017

                                                                    Edward H. Sebesta

                                                                     edwardsebesta@gmail.com

Mayor Mike Rawlings

Mayor and City Council City of Dallas

Dallas City Hall

1500 Marilla St.

Dallas, Texas 75201

Dear Hon. Rawlings:

In your online published memo I see that you have appointed as Confederate monuments task force chair Rev. Frances Cudjoe Waters who in your memo list as a minister of the United Methodist Church (UMC) and who has been a leader and strategist in that denomination. A brief review of Rev. Waters activities show a remarkably talented person and a person with a social conscious  and active in the pursuit of social justice.

However, since you brought up Rev. Waters’s leadership role in the UMC as a qualification, I would like Rev. Water’s to speak to the UMC’s history of lending their facilities to neo-Confederate groups, the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) and the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC.)

I have been writing denominations and individual churches asking them to not lend their facilities and the prestige of their denomination and historical buildings to neo-Confederate groups. After writing St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in 2014 in Richmond, Virginia they decided to disinvite the UDC.  (http://richmondfreepress.com/news/2014/nov/07/confederates-hold-service-downtown-church/).

St. Paul’s later decided to give up the Confederacy. This was the church which both Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis attended during the Civil War. (http://www.richmond.com/news/local/city-of-richmond/article_fda4f734-e732-5c7f-bbe3-5f66f1f09cb3.html)

However, the UMC record on this is very poor. Despite extensive correspondence to individual hosting churches, UMC bishops, and the national leadership the record has been a refusal to engage the issue. UMC churches continue to lend their facilities to the UDC. I enclose a package documenting the UDC activities at UMC churches.

I enclose some documentation about the SCV and the UDC. The SCV documentation was written up a dossier published at Black Commentator, (http://www.blackcommentator.com/526/526_confederacy_sebesta_guest_share.htm), and I enclose three articles from UDC Magazine.  One UDC magazine argues that the 14^th Amendment was a mistake; another is about “shrine to the Red Shirts,” a violent white terroristic group in 1876 in South Carolina, and yet another recommends the pro-Klan book, “Southern by the Grace of God,” to be given to children as a “treasure.” I enclose a short article on these materials published in the Dallas Morning News, which provides more information about this book. (https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/08/17/confederate-heritage-root-recent-tragedies-troubles)

Incidentally these groups often come with sad, sad faces talking nostalgic memory. Everyone might well consider these materials while they are talking to the city council and to the task force.

I have no idea if Rev. Waters knows of this UMC activity much less endorses it.  I suspect that Rev. Waters probably is entirely unaware of this activity and very likely would be very much dismayed to learn of it.

However, Rev. Waters is tasked to deal with the difficult issues of historical memory in Dallas. I think it would be instructive to know Rev. Waters’s thoughts regarding the UMC enabling of neo-Confederate groups.  

                                                                        Sincerely Yours,

                                                                        Edward H. Sebesta

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Letter to Dallas Mayor Rawlings about his proposed task force.

You can see that I incorporate into this letter the concept of the speech I didn't give on August 12, 2017.

This is the link to the blog posting at the Anti-Neo-Confederate blog.

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-speech-i-didnt-give-at-saturday.html#.Wa1wJsh96iM


This is one of the two letters I sent Fed Ex Sunday to reach the mayor. Copies were sent to all city council members.

                                                           September 3, 2017

                                                                                    edwardsebesta@gmail.com

Mayor Mike Rawlings

Mayor and City Council City of Dallas

Dallas City Hall

1500 Marilla St.

Dallas, Texas 75201

Dear Hon. Rawlings:

I enclose a copy of an article published in The Grio, May 26, 2017 online at http://thegrio.com/2017/05/26/hundreds-of-confederate-statues-still-standing/.  I am quoted on the 4^th page of the article about what the form of opposition to Confederate statues will take.  The section is highlighted in yellow.

The sections explains that these rationalizations to retain Confederate monuments will be represented as some type of sophisticated understanding of historical memory instead of the issue of race. It is my belief that these are manifestations of banal white nationalism driven by fear of loss of control over the landscape and how America is defined.

One method to enable these rationalizations is to set up a commission, committee or task force composed of members of the local establishment who are predisposed against removal to formulate these rationalizations and present them as expert opinion.  We already have an indication what type of task force this might be with the Bravo Walker interview in the Dallas Morning News in which Walker states that he wants to “save so badly” the Robert E. Lee statue. https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/09/01/dallas-mayors-confederate-monument-task-force-member-questions-mission.

I think it needs to be considered that as other cities take down their Confederate monuments that Dallas’s Confederate monuments will be scarecrows indicating what type of city Dallas is.

                                                                        Sincerely Yours,

                                                                        Edward H. Sebesta

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Article about the ideology of violence of the neo-Confederate movement published in the "Dallas Morning News"

The ideology of violence of the neo-Confederate movement.

The fear, rage and fantasies of revenge. I wrote the first draft Friday before the death of Heather Heyer. I am hoping that people are alerted so that there won't be another death.

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/08/17/confederate-heritage-root-recent-tragedies-troubles

Maurice Ash of Up n Up News has a great video on the struggle against Confederate Monuments in Dallas and Charlottesville

This is the link to the video. If you are on Facebook please share.

https://www.facebook.com/UpnUpNews/videos/1993425950873175/

It is about the struggle against Confederate monuments in Dallas and Charlottesville.

Ed Gray on Channel 8 about why the Dallas Confederate monuments need to go.

http://www.wfaa.com/news/politics/inside-texas-politics-8617/462208923

It is in the My Voice segment.

Rally at Pioneer Park, Thursday Aug. 10 6:30 to 7:30 pm.

This is the link to the Facebook event.

https://www.facebook.com/events/315156162228508/?acontext=%7B%22action_history%22%3A[%7B%22mechanism%22%3A%22bookmarks%22%2C%22surface%22%3A%22bookmarks_menu%22%2C%22extra_data%22%3A%22[]%22%7D%2C%7B%22surface%22%3A%22dashboard%22%2C%22mechanism%22%3A%22calendar_tab_event%22%2C%22extra_data%22%3A%22[]%22%7D]%2C%22ref%22%3A46%2C%22source%22%3A2%7D

It is at Pioneer Park in Dallas from Thursday, August 10th, 6:30 to 7:30 pm.

It is being hosted by In Solidarity.


https://www.facebook.com/InSolidarityMovement/