City officials in Austin don’t want to stop at removing Confederate monuments and renaming streets – they want to rename the entire city.
In a report about existing Confederate monuments, the city of Austin’s Equity Office suggested renaming the capital of the Lone Star State because the city’s namesake, Stephen F. Austin, supported slavery:
The report also noted that Stephen Austin “fought to defend slavery in spite of Mexico’s effort to ban it.”
He “believed slave labor indispensable for Texas to flourish” and “believed that if slaves were emancipated they would turn into ‘vagabonds, a nuisance and a menace.'” It also said that Austin sought to have slave owners compensated if their slaves were freed.
Never mind that Austin founded Texas and is literally known as the “Father of Texas.” According to liberals who seek to whitewash history, his position on a single issue is enough to undo everything else he accomplished.
But renaming Austin was far from the only suggestion made by the city’s Equity Office.
The office submitted two lists of “questionable” names for review. The first lists “places that are directly related to the Confederacy and are considered high priority” for immediate removal or renaming, and includes seven street names such as Dixie Drive, Confederate Avenue, and Plantation Road. The second list – which includes renaming the city itself – addresses names that aren’t “explicitly Confederate and/or Civil War related but were within the spirit of the resolution representing segregation, racism, and/or slavery.”
Unsurprisingly, many residents and business owners are opposed to renaming the streets simply due to the inconvenience of dealing with a new address. However, that didn’t stop Austin officials from renaming two streets earlier this year. Despite a majority of residents opposing the changes, the Austin City Council renamed Robert E. Lee Road as Azie Morton Road and Jeff Davis Avenue as William Holland Avenue in April.
Of course, this sort of thing is happening all across the country. Schools are being renamed – often in favor of Barack Obama – and monuments are being vandalized and removed, always with a complete disregard for American history outside slavery and racism. For example, monuments and dedications to Confederate General Robert E. Lee are far and away the most maligned, but even liberal icon Franklin Delano Roosevelt hailed Lee as “one of our greatest American gentlemen.” Liberals would do well took look into Lee’s personal beliefs and all the horrific things Union soldiers did to him and his home before writing him out of history just because he fought for the South.
Thankfully, a city name change for Austin is unlikely to happen. Not only is it low on the list of priorities, but it would likely require an election as “Austin” would have to be struck from the city charter and replaced. Nevertheless, it just goes to show that nothing is safe from the wrath of revisionist SJWs.
