Robert E. Lee Statue Removed From Dallas Park Now On Display At West Texas Resort
TERLINGUA, Texas (CBSDFW.COM/AP) - A statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that the city of Dallas removed from a park and later sold during an online auction is now on display at a golf resort nearly 600 miles southwest of the city, near the Mexican border.
The 1935 sculpture was removed in 2017.
According to the Houston Chronicle, the statue is now at the Lajitas Golf Resort in Terlingua, Texas.
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, 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, Virginia, in 2017.
Beasley says the resort is just preserving 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 said.
Terlingua, which is in 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.
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.
"We don't glorify the swastika; we don't have monuments (of) Adolf Hitler," he said.
(© Copyright 2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
