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Evidence of “symbols of injustice”

Dallas’ Dealey Plaza has a Confederate Monument



The Dallas Mayor’s Task Force for Confederate Monuments continues its hunt for “Confederate propaganda” – as Mayor Rawlings characterized the now removed statue of Robert E. Lee. As the citizen task force, appointed by the Mayor and the City Council, ferrets out public channels of conveying Confederate propaganda, they’re being methodically tutored in the racist, wrong-headed thinking that prevailed among the white population of the post-bellum South. Dallas included.
Evidence of “symbols of injustice” – to again quote His Honor Mike Rawlings – are being discovered in the names of public schools, on street signs, in cemeteries, even in Dallas’ Fair Park where the Texas State Fair is held each fall. They are – these “dangerous totems,” sayeth the Mayor – popping up like mushrooms all across his city, dubbed, after November 22, 1963, the “City of Hate,” sayeth His Honor. One of the big mysteries of this totem hunt is that, since the R.E. Lee statue in Lee Park has already been removed by the City Council, why is it important to convince the task force that he was an evil man? Hey, he’s gone! Ya gotta wonder if this drill is after-the-fact justification for sending Lee, and his horse Traveler, to a dust bin – like that warehouse at the end of the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark? So far, thought, there’s one prominent and pernicious portrayal of propaganda positioned in plain sight that escapes the attention of the citizen task force appointed by the Mayor and City Council to come up with a recommended removal list of “Confederate propaganda,” and related…stuff. That one thing is the pergola in Dealey Plaza, in downtown Dallas, near where President John Kennedy died on November 22, 1963.

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The Bryan Pergola, standing on the Grassy Knoll in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas, is named after John Neely Bryan (1810-1877), the recognized founder of the City of Dallas. (Brace yourselves, task force, for what follows, with an OMG on stand-by.) In late 1861, Bryan joined the Confederate 18th Regiment, Company D, Texas Cavalry (Darnell’s), where he served as a Private until late 1862, when poor health sent him home. The organizer and Commanding Officer of the 18th Regiment was Colonel Nicholas Henry Darnell (1807-1885). Darnell is buried in the Pioneer Cemetery in Dallas, a possible postmortem propaganda portal being examined by the Dallas Mayor’s Task Force on Confederate Monuments.  There is no known photo of Bryan; that’s Nick in the picture. Removing the Bryan Pergola will require some action from the U.S. Government, since it stands on a National Historic Landmark. But, perhaps it need only be renamed, as was Lee Park in Dallas. (How about – the “Rawlings Pergola?”) It gets worse. Since John Neely Bryan enlisted in the Army of the Confederate States of America in late 1861, at age 51, the task force would likely assume he was fighting to protect the southern institution of slavery, even though he didn’t own slaves. As far as they know, the whole war was about slavery. But that assumption is problematic; and that also applies to the disposition of a statue of Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston, who is already on the task force hit list.

The problem lays within a troublesome chronology of historical fact that cannot be disputed. The American Civil War began on April 12-14, 1861, with the Battle of Fort Sumter. In the following calendar year, about 53 battles were fought in 12 different states, with the most significant and bloody one on April 6-7, 1862, at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee. One of the Confederate Generals depicted in the biggest Dallas Confederate monument, Albert Sidney Johnston, died at Shiloh. As a traveling career U.S. Army officer nearly all of his adult life before the war, there is no record of Johnston ever having owned a slave. That makes it a bit hard to argue that he died fighting to protect the institution of slavery. Why’s that? Well, it wasn’t until April 16, 1862, after a full year of soldiers killed, wounded, and missing, on both sides that President Lincoln signed into law: “An Act for the release of certain persons held to service or labor in the District of Columbia.” (AKA: The DC Compensated Emancipation Act of 1862.) This should not be confused with Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of September 22, 1862. Lincoln’s Proclamation was not an Act of Congress; he did it by himself – he had a pen, but no phone. The earlier DC Act was an act of the U.S. Congress.


The DC Act freed about 3,100 women, men, and children who were enslaved in – believe it or not, task force –Washington, D.C. That means that when Bryan joined the armed forces of the Confederacy, and when General Johnston died at Shiloh, slavery was legal, and practiced, in the Capital City of the United States. Now back to Dealey Plaza and the Bryan Pergola where renaming it won’t solve the problem, precisely because it does stand in Dealey Plaza. Dealey Plaza is named after George Bannerman Dealey. He was a publisher for the Dallas Morning News and owned the A. H. Belo Corporation, which was named after Alfred Horatio Belo, founder of the Dallas Morning News. No problem so far, but it’s ahead… Alfred Horatio Belo fought in the Civil War – OMG – as an officer in the North Carolina 55th Regiment. He was wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg and in the Battle of Cold Harbor. Luckily for George Dealey, when the Civil War started he was only two years old. Hence, there’s no record of him having served in the Confederate armed forces – not even as a five year old drummer boy. So move along task force. Nothing to see with George Dealey, but the Belo connection is a big problem. Belo fought in the Civil War and then he founded…a newspaper! Can we say: Post- Bellum Propaganda Machine?

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Lee Cary -- Bio and Archives Since November 2007, Lee Cary has written hundreds of articles for several websites including the American Thinker, and Breitbart’s Big Journalism and Big Government (as “Archy Cary”). and the Canada Free Press. Cary’s work was quoted on national television (Sean Hannity) and on nationally syndicated radio (Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin). His articles have posted on the aggregate sites Drudge Report, Whatfinger, Lucianne, Free Republic, and Real Clear Politics. He holds a Doctorate in Theology from Garrett Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL, is a veteran of the US Army Military Intelligence in Vietnam assigned to the [strong]Phoenix Program[/strong]. He lives in Texas.

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