A statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that the city of Dallas removed from a park and later is now on display at a golf resort in West Texas.
The bronze sculpture, which was removed from the Dallas park in September 2017, is now at the Lajitas Golf Resort in Terlingua, Texas, the .
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.
The artwork, which depicts Lee and another soldier on horses, was at Dallas鈥� Hensley Field, the former Naval Air Station, until it was sold in 2019. Holmes Firm PC made the top offer for the sculpture, according to documents from the Dallas City Council.
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 people make up just 1.7% of the population of Brewster County, according to census data.
Beasley told the Chronicle the statue serves no intent but to preserve 鈥渁 fabulous piece of art.鈥�
鈥淚 would say that of the 60-plus-thousand guests we host each year, we鈥檝e had one or two negative comments鈥� he said.
But Black Lives Matter Houston activist Brandon Mack said he takes issue with supporters of Lee who argue that the statue is merely 鈥渁n appreciation for art鈥� and wonders whether the same defense would be used for other offensive symbols from throughout history, or if that鈥檚 reserved for iconography solely glorifying the oppression of Blacks.
鈥淲e don鈥檛 glorify the swastika; we don鈥檛 have monuments (of) Adolf Hitler,鈥� he said.
