Texas Gulf Coast Area Labor Federation Resolution on Confederate Memorials

Adopted by TGCALF Executive Board 8/6/20

WHEREAS our country is going through an important period of reckoning with the historical legacy of white supremacy and its continuing impact on the lives and rights of Black workers and other workers of color; and

WHEREAS the AFL-CIO, Texas AFL-CIO, and Texas Gulf Coast Area Labor Federation support this reckoning and have gone on record calling for an end to systemic racism; and

WHEREAS the Confederacy separated from the Union to preserve the institution of slavery, thereby committing an act of treason that in no way should be honored; and

WHEREAS after the Civil War organizations and government bodies erected memorials to the Confederacy as a statement of support for both the Confederacy, Jim Crow segregation, and other forms of white supremacy; and

WHEREAS memorials to the confederacy include but are not limited to tangible objects in places of public display such as statues and painting as well as the naming of streets, schools, etc. after Confederate leaders and soldiers; and

WHEREAS any memorial in a place of public display accords the community’s honor and respect to those memorialized; and

WHEREAS Confederate leaders and soldiers deserve to be remembered but not given places of honor and respect;

WHEREAS tax dollars should never be used to support or memorialize treasonous actions such as those undertaken by the Confederacy;

RESOLVED, that The Texas Gulf Coast Area Labor Federation supports the removal of all memorials to the Confederacy from places of public display into storage, museums, or similar sites for historical preservation.