Racist Relic Rock Removed in Lockhart
Lockhart residents are celebrating the removal of a Confederate monument that stood in front of the Caldwell County Courthouse for 98 years. The monument, which has strong ties to the Ku Klux Klan, was quietly relocated to the Caldwell County Jail Museum on Dec. 16.
"Yeah, we got our relic rock moved," said Margaret Carter, a leader of Lockhart's Black Lives Matter activists. "It's right on the street that I was born and raised on, where my family still resides, but we're not disappointed. People say, 'Why move it? Now it's over in your neighborhood and you're still going to see it.' Yeah, but it's not in front of a courthouse where everyone is supposed to be able to go in and believe that justice will be served. That's the difference."
Carter has worked to get the monument moved for 15 years, but it never seemed possible until the success of the BLM demonstrations she helped organize last summer. Carter and other Lockhart residents joined with recent Austin transplants including Cody Kimball of Bluebonnet Records, as well as the staff of Mano Amiga, a social justice organization with an office directly across from the courthouse. Together, they got the Caldwell County Commissioners Court to consider the monument's relocation.
Caldwell County Judge Hoppy Haden leads the five-member court. "I was firmly against moving it," Haden said. "I wanted to leave it where it was and then put a plaque up, just contextualizing what went on – you know, that people in Caldwell County no longer believe in slavery or any of the other things that the Civil War was fought over."
Read more: https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2021-12-24/racist-relic-rock-removed-in-lockhart/
The Confederate monument outside the Caldwell County Courthouse (Photo by Jim Bell (University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History))
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