The Southwest Isn’t Immune
It seems the rampage against everything associated with the Confederacy has spread from the East and South into the Southwest. Texas has taken an exerted effort to eradicate its monuments and change school names. And now, New Mexico has jumped onboard with changing our American history. It’s a shame they don’t understand who Jefferson Davis was. Besides being the first and only president of the Confederacy, he was a U.S. Senator and a war hero in the Mexican War. He was reluctant to become president, and expressed this sentiment on several occasions. But because he was from the South, he felt compelled to do what he viewed as his patriotic duty. Jefferson Davis even started the Smithsonian Institution. It’s a shame that his name has suddenly become taboo.
SEVERAL MEMORIALS REMOVED
Did you know that the section of I-10 from Lordsburg to Las Cruces in New Mexico was the Jefferson Davis Highway? At least it was. The decades-old markers, which had been erected in the State’s rest areas, were removed by the New Mexico Department of Transportation.
When asked why the markers had been removed without any indication or action of the Governor or Legislature, Emilee Cantrell, a Transportation Department spokeswoman, said: “The markers…were brought to Secretary [Tom] Church’s attention, he had them removed.”
Cantrell did not say when or how the Secretary became aware of the markers, only that each was removed. She would not say what the Department has done with the markers, either.
Local officials, like Las Cruces Mayor Ken Miyagishima, seemed unaware the monuments ever existed.
Now, they are simply gone.
(Courtesy of Dixie Heritage Newsletter, June 15, 2018 ed.)
