Embedded Files
When you reach out to our elected officials on this issue, please be sure to find out who the commissioner is in your precinct, and include this as well as your zip code or address in your correspondence. Doing so will validate your voice as a constituent.
Click here to send an email to the Gregg County Commissioners to let them know the confederate monument on the courthouse lawn represents a legacy of racism and oppression, and does not represent the community we call home. The link will open an email window, pre-filled with an email our team has put together for your use. There are also three other template options - linked here, here, and here. (For your convenience, the full text of each of the letters linked here are also copied and pasted lower on this page.)
If it is more convenient for you to do so, you may use any or all of the email templates to write emails, create letters to mail, or scripts to call and read to the commissioners' office. The commissioners' meeting schedule is published online here. If you cannot make the meeting time, consider emailing or calling in advance of each meeting, to help let them know their decision not to second a motion to vote on statue removal was insufficient to satisfy this community's desire to see this monument removed.
However you choose to make your voice heard, we encourage you to do so often. These commissioners are elected to represent our community, and on this matter, they are not representing our community well.
Letter 1: Confederate Monument Removal
Dear Judge Stoudt & Commissioners,
I, (name), am a resident of Gregg County. I would like to add my voice to the chorus of others asking that you take the lead in protecting the integrity of our diverse community here in Gregg county Texas by removing the confederate monument from the courthouse lawn. We ask for your formal support in this initiative to improve communication and relations with the community as a whole and provide an environment where all can feel safe, heard, and respected. By removing the statue from the Gregg County Courthouse; a location that nearly every member of our community will pass through during the most important moments of their life, we are showing that we no longer hold on to the comforting lies of a horrific past, and instead fully embrace the people living amongst us now, and those that died to ensure they could. Removing the statue means that a large portion of our community doesn’t have to visit or work under the watchful gaze of their one-time oppressors. Removing this statue sends a message of hope to those that are otherwise disenfranchised that says everyone can sit at the same table and have their voice heard.
Your hopeful constituent,
(name, commissioner's name & precinct, & zip code or address)
Letter 2: Don't Erase History
Dear Judge Stoudt & Commissioners,
I, (name), am a resident of Gregg County. I would like to share a word with you about heritage. There is a proud heritage in this country for standing up to our oppressors and making things right. In the 1700’s, our sovereign nation rebelled and established this nation after being oppressed and having our words of protest ignored. In the 1800s, when a portion of our nation refused to acknowledge human rights and then committed treason to fight to keep and enslave members of our nation simply because of the color of their skin, we fought and won against the aggressors and their evil agenda. When totalitarianism turned to fascism in Europe and a foreign power began doing to the Jewish people what those confederates had done not so long ago to our own, we sent the full force of our nation against them, tearing down any symbol or building used to honor that hateful legacy, statues included. And yet, in complete defiance of this honorable heritage, today we have a statue standing that honors traitors and enemies as heroes. Those traitors declared proudly that a significant portion of our citizens were less than animals, and deserved no more than to be owned and survive at the mercy of their white masters. A statue that says this while ironically standing guard over the halls of “justice.” It is an offense to justice and our true American heritage.
Proud of our shared heritage of resistance to oppression,
(name, commissioner's name & precinct, & zip code or address)
Letter 3: This Historic Moment
Dear Judge Stoudt & Commissioners,
I, (name), am a resident of Gregg County. On behalf of the residents of this county, I implore you: don't erase history.There is also a history in Longview and this country that is ignored by the confederate statue. Lives have been lost at the hands of slave masters, plantation owners, confederates, and white supremacists in this county while in pursuit of the American dream. Heroes had to sacrifice their lives for the cause of freedom and those that cried for it when no one would listen, while the confederates murdered them to stifle that cry in their throat. The heroes of the civil war were the ones that fought for freedom of the people, not the ones who fought for the freedom to enslave our people. To suggest that these confederates were “heroes” in a time where much of the people working to keep this county fruitful and functioning are exactly those they wanted put down and subjugated is absurd and disingenuous to the true history of our county and by extension this great nation.
As it stands many people in Gregg County don’t know about the statue or its history, and most that do are those impacted negatively by its presence. It saddens me that this is such a hard decision to make that this letter has to exist, and yet it does. Don't erase the history of our community by leaving in place a statue that ignores the diversity of that history.
History has its eyes on you,
(name, commissioner's name & precinct, & zip code or address)
Letter 4: Choose Courage Over Cowardice
Dear Judge Stoudt & Commissioners,
I, (name), am a resident of Gregg County. I hope that you have courage to make the right decision about the statue on the courthouse lawn. It takes a honed sense of justice and integrity wielded deftly against a mighty enemy of tradition and indoctrinated lies or misinformation. I hope this letter finds you with that sense of courage and tenacity of spirit our country has inspired in others. I hope you take the lead on this issue and stand with your community as a whole, rather than against them as just another oppressor in the dark annals of history.
Be courageous on our behalf,
(name, commissioner's name & precinct, & zip code or address)
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