I know you don't think this will happen, but at some point, it is seriously going to be looked at.
Already the news the last 24 hours out of the City of Austin is the city is looking at changing the name of Lamar Blvd. to something else.
Lamar Blvd. is one of the major streets in Austin. Back when you could drive in Austin, my wife and I often had one of our favorite restaurants on Lamar. If I went now, I need to get Reid and April or perhaps Corey to take us to a good restaurant. ( We like Mexican food...or just about anything else...)
They are also talking about changing Lamar Street's name in Dallas.
Let's talk about the Father of Education in Texas- Mirabeau B. Lamar.
Before coming to Texas, he conspired with the Governor of Georgia to swindle the Creek Indians out of lands in Georgia. Lamar was the governor's private secretary. After the governor lost reelection, Lamar bought the newspaper, the Columbus Enquirer and was elected to the state senate. While involved with both, Lamar became involved with one major issue, the nullification of national laws in order to support slavery.
After moving to Texas after the death of his brother, and serving at the Battle of San Jacinto, Lamar was elected President of Texas in 1838.
It is while there he establish lands to be used for education in Texas.
In Anderson, Gary C. The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land 1820–1875, Lamar is quoted in his first address to the Texas Congress that he believed the "total extinction" of the Indian tribes was necessary to make the lands available to whites.
Lamar was even more racist than the average person of the time. In 1840 he signed " An Act Concerning Free Persons of Color" in which it required all Free Blacks to leave Texas within a 2 year time period. Or they would be sold into slavery.
You of course should have learned of Lamar bankrupting Texas, in your 7th Grade Texas history class and in 1844, Lamar supported joining the United States, not for reasons you believe. He was more afraid of the banks in London... Texas had borrowed money from England and they would make Texas as a part of their bankruptcy restructuring give up slavery.( Britain had become abolitionist in the 1800s) He wanted to join America as a state to keep slavery.
His support of the Union lasted only about 5 years when the Compromise of 1850 was passed. And Lamar supported an independent Texas once again....It threatened slavery.
Why support slavery? For Lamar it was an economic one. He owned a large plantation Southwest of Houston in Richmond, and needed slave labor to make the business profitable.
Now, the ugliest statue in America is the one of Mirabeau Lamar in front of the Setzer Center and my understanding is a 2 lb Largemouth Bass stuck head first into Mirabeau's eyes, well, it is a perfect fit. At least it was in the 1970s.
Don't say never, because the world is changing. Changing quickly. You are going to wake up sooner than later and realize Texas demographics are so different, so different and you'll be whining, about " What happened?"
South Park, where Lamar is built, well, the demographics have changed since the 1950s when Lamar was established as a 4 year college ( Old Lamar Tech). South Park is no longer a White working class neighborhood. And how are you going to explain or support a university named after a racist in the middle of what is now a working class Black community?
So what are we going to name it?
University of Beaumont? ( No)
The University of Southeast Texas? ( No)
The Harvard on the Neches?
And while we are at it, let's get rid of Cardinals as the nickname. Nothing scary about a Cardinal. And the damn slogan " Peck 'em cards"....Yeah that scares people to death.....And I know there is another college in the conference named "cardinals" but it is a Catholic school and I think originally it was named for the Cardinal, the Prince of the the Catholic Church.....Scary? Might be if you're an underage boy....
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