By Juan Montoya
It was billed as a forum to let the community express their views on whether to move the Jefferson Davis Memorial Monument out of Washington Park to another, less prominent site.
But from the outset it was evident that what some participants wanted was not to voice their opinion on moving the stone, but on making the forum one for their views on race.
![Image result for erasmo castro]()
Hosted by the Parks Advisory board, only one city commissioner – Cesar de Leon – attended the entire meeting. Commissioner Rose Gowen stayed for a while until the dialogue eroded into a shouting match between anti-confederacy activists and participants who viewed them as racist throwbacks embracing the Neo-Confederacy viewpoints.
But local gadfly and perennial losing political candidate Erasmo Castro had what he wanted: a soapbox for the public to listen to his spiel. What did he do?
Instead of saying whether he wanted the monument moved or not, he used his 15 minutes of fame to recite verbatim, the secret recording of De Leon made by former fire chief Carlos Elizondo during a private conversation between four people in an isolated ranch. During a rant, De Leon – an attorney – used the "N" word to refer to several Asst. DAs he thought were overly harsh and vindictive toward local Hispanic defendants.
Castro's distasteful performance obviously didn't get the rise from people that Castro thought it would. Most of those present thought it was a gratuitous abuse of the forum to attack De Leon, who also spoke at the forum and gave the context for his speech. When De Leon first announced he was thinking of resigning, Castro called for a conference of potential candidates to replace him and invited them to discuss "his" city commission position. Shortly after he spoke, Castro left.
But what some veterans who attended said was that like it or not, Jefferson Davis was a veteran and that he deserved a place at the Veterans Park next to the central library to commemorate his service. Before the southern states seceded, Davis was an officer in the Union army and participated in the Mexican-American War and the Indian Wars. Some said that the country had declared confederate soldiers veterans, a faulty interpretation of a symbolic congressional act declaring the surviving ones eligible only for pensions.
Others said that since Davis had committed treason against the Unites States and killed its soldiers, he didn't deserve to be in Veterans Park with those who were loyal to this country.
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Various people have said that the Davis stone does not belong in a museum, but rather could be placed at the Charles Stillman House, his contemporary who listed a fugitive slave as his possession in Cameron County.
Stillman supported the secession of the southern states even though he was originally from Connecticut. During the Civil War he amassed a fortune smuggling Confederate cotton under a Mexican flag out of Matamoros. He sold some of that cotton to the Union for the manufacture of soldier uniforms.
The Stillman House is located on Washington Street in the heart of downtown Brownsville and is visited by thousands yearly.
The reason the Town Hall was scheduled by the Parks Advisory Board was so they could get input from the public and then they would forward their recommendation to the full city commission. Since the majority did not attend, they will have no way of knowing the context of the discussion before the y cast their vote.
It was billed as a forum to let the community express their views on whether to move the Jefferson Davis Memorial Monument out of Washington Park to another, less prominent site.
But from the outset it was evident that what some participants wanted was not to voice their opinion on moving the stone, but on making the forum one for their views on race.
Hosted by the Parks Advisory board, only one city commissioner – Cesar de Leon – attended the entire meeting. Commissioner Rose Gowen stayed for a while until the dialogue eroded into a shouting match between anti-confederacy activists and participants who viewed them as racist throwbacks embracing the Neo-Confederacy viewpoints.But local gadfly and perennial losing political candidate Erasmo Castro had what he wanted: a soapbox for the public to listen to his spiel. What did he do?
Instead of saying whether he wanted the monument moved or not, he used his 15 minutes of fame to recite verbatim, the secret recording of De Leon made by former fire chief Carlos Elizondo during a private conversation between four people in an isolated ranch. During a rant, De Leon – an attorney – used the "N" word to refer to several Asst. DAs he thought were overly harsh and vindictive toward local Hispanic defendants.
Castro's distasteful performance obviously didn't get the rise from people that Castro thought it would. Most of those present thought it was a gratuitous abuse of the forum to attack De Leon, who also spoke at the forum and gave the context for his speech. When De Leon first announced he was thinking of resigning, Castro called for a conference of potential candidates to replace him and invited them to discuss "his" city commission position. Shortly after he spoke, Castro left.
But what some veterans who attended said was that like it or not, Jefferson Davis was a veteran and that he deserved a place at the Veterans Park next to the central library to commemorate his service. Before the southern states seceded, Davis was an officer in the Union army and participated in the Mexican-American War and the Indian Wars. Some said that the country had declared confederate soldiers veterans, a faulty interpretation of a symbolic congressional act declaring the surviving ones eligible only for pensions.
Others said that since Davis had committed treason against the Unites States and killed its soldiers, he didn't deserve to be in Veterans Park with those who were loyal to this country.
Various people have said that the Davis stone does not belong in a museum, but rather could be placed at the Charles Stillman House, his contemporary who listed a fugitive slave as his possession in Cameron County.
Stillman supported the secession of the southern states even though he was originally from Connecticut. During the Civil War he amassed a fortune smuggling Confederate cotton under a Mexican flag out of Matamoros. He sold some of that cotton to the Union for the manufacture of soldier uniforms.
The Stillman House is located on Washington Street in the heart of downtown Brownsville and is visited by thousands yearly.
The reason the Town Hall was scheduled by the Parks Advisory Board was so they could get input from the public and then they would forward their recommendation to the full city commission. Since the majority did not attend, they will have no way of knowing the context of the discussion before the y cast their vote.