Controversy surrounds state holiday honoring Confederate veterans

By Doug Miller

Standing in Sam Houston Park, sometimes literally in the shadow of the downtown skyline, is a monument to a lost cause.

A bronze angel bearing a sword and a palm branch stands with crossed arms atop a granite pedestal dedicated “to all heroes of the South who fought for the Principles of States Rights.” More than a century after The Spirit of the Confederacy was erected in the park by the Robert E. Lee Chapter No. 186 of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, it stands as an everlasting reminder of Texas’ role in a still-divisive civil war.KHOU visited the statue on the day Texas calls Confederate Heroes Day, a celebration of veterans who fought a war of insurrection that defended slavery. It’s a commemoration some Texans find troubling.

“Yeah, it’s a little disconcerting,” said Mary Nelson-Clark, who had never noticed the statue memorialized Confederate veterans and didn’t know Texas had a holiday celebrating them as heroes.

“Read the Full Article at www.khou.com >>>>”