AUSTIN, Texas – At the University of Texas, vandals defaced the statue of the president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis and other leaders.
Someone wrote "black lives matter" on the base of the monuments. The message appeared as some try to get the statues removed from campus completely.
"Certainly there have been people protesting the confederate symbol for a long time," said Rice University history professor, Caleb McDaniel. "The one that most people think of as the Confederate flag was actually a battle flag that was used by the army of northern Virginia. It wasn't the official flag of the Confederacy. But it was adopted particularly in the civil rights era in the 1960s by conservative white Southerners who were resistant to integration and the expansion of civil rights."
Now one of the top flag manufacturers announced it is ending production of Confederate flags. Amazon pulled Confederate flag merchandise. Walmart already stopped selling the items.
"The flag of the battle for supremacy by the Southern states is a flag whose time has come and gone. It has to go," said Congressman Al Green of the 9th Congressional District.
He testified the state should take the Confederate flag off of personalized license plates. The Supreme Court ruled that Texas was within its rights to ban the flag from the personalized tags.
The Houston Ministers Against Crime gathered at the New Birth Community Church in north Houston on Tuesday to pray for the lives lost and those impacted by the shooting in South Carolina.