The History of This Monument

Description and location of the monument:

• • Long Description: Dedicated June 3, 1911 in Bodie Park, Fredonia & Tyler Streets, southeast corner. Relocated in 1932 to the Gregg County Courthouse lawn.

  • Inscription: (On east face of base, 2nd tier:) ERECTED BY R B LEVY CHAPTER UDC/LONGVIEW, TEXAS/JUNE 17, 1910 (On east face of base, 5th tier:) DEDICATED TO THE CONFEDERATE SOLDIER OF 1861-1865 (On north side of base: state seal of Texas) (On west side of base, in raised letters:) LEST WE FORGET (On west side of base, engraved:) OUR CONFEDERATE HEROES (On lower right corner of third tier of south face:) F. Teich/Llano, Tex. signed

Early pictures of the monument

• • Erected in 1911, moved to courthouse in 1930s

  • Photograph of Bodie Park in downtown Longview, Texas. The park contained a Confederate Monument and was located across from the First National Bank at the corner of Fredonia and Tyler streets.

CBS Article about Chelsea's petition

• • "At the end of the day those monuments weren’t built out of foolish political notion. They were built because people wanted to honor their loved ones who died on battlefields. And many of them still lay in unmarked graves or burial trenches on those battlefields to this day,” said Michael Pepper, of Ore City. ”In 1905, the local Daughters of the Confederacy chapter decided to do something about this problem. They spent six years raising the money for a memorial to remember the Confederate dead: those who never returned,” said Linda Beverly.

  • Zach Calloway of Longview said, ”When I look at a monument of Dr. King I am looking at his legacy, his ideology. And his was ideology of pride and people’s power. That is not what I see or what any of us should see when we look at a Confederate statue. The legacy there is that of a failed five year rebellion to defend slave masters’ rights to rule over black men, women and children. If you cannot see that when you look at these statues, then I don’t know what else to say.”

KLTV Article about Chelsea's petition:

• • Will Guzmán, a history professor at Prairie View A&M University, says the Gregg County statue, which was built in 1911 after a donation from the United Daughters of the Confederacy was part of a wave of monuments built as the last surviving Civil War soldiers were dying. The statues also served as a reminder of the Jim Crow laws that led to segregation and persecution in the South. “They were very strategic in order to resist the Civil Rights Movement,” Guzmán stated.

  • “I think, when you look at this state’s ugly history—not only regarding the institution of slavery, but also the resistance to the Civil Rights Movement—it becomes a shameful history that should not be privileged or honored,” Guzmán said.

  • Another statue outside the Gregg County courthouse celebrates veterans of all wars. Laury and Guzmán both say they want the government to celebrate people who fought for The United States and for freedom, rather than those who fought on the side of slavery.

About the history and purpose of Confederate monuments across the South

• • note: this statue is *not* of John Gregg

Other confederate statues in East Texas