Jun 15, 2020

  • Dave WilsonESPN Staff Writer

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      Dave Wilson is an editor for ESPN.com since 2010. He previously worked at The Dallas Morning News, San Diego Union-Tribune and Las Vegas Sun.

As debate continues nearly a controversial statue's place on the Texas A&M campus, senior quarterback Kellen Mond has taken on a function as an outspoken critic of the monument and those who wish to keep it, saying the statue represents someone who "killed and disenfranchised blacks."

Terminal Midweek, the statue of Lawrence "Sul" Ross, a erstwhile Confederate general, Texas governor and A&M president, was vandalized, spray-painted with "Racist" and the acronyms BLM and ACAB, and a clown wig was placed atop the statue's head. This weekend, in that location were protests for and against its removal in front of the statue in the middle of campus.

Critics of the statue say it should be moved based on Ross' past as a Confederate general and celebrated claims of suppression of indigenous and black citizens in Texas. Supporters claim the statue represents his function in saving the university and honors him in that context, and that any claims of white supremacy are untrue, citing his fight to protect funding for Prairie View A&Thousand, a historically blackness university, in add-on to other services for black Texans he created every bit governor.

On Saturday, A&1000 professor Michael Alvard, an assistant in the school'southward department of anthropology who is a supporter of the statue's removal, was arrested by Texas A&M police force after crossing police tape into an "exclusionary zone" between the protesters while trying to speak.

Mond tweeted, "Michael Alvard was arrested at the Sully Statue protest for trying to speak to both sides of the protest. Yes, one side is counter protesting racism."

In response to a tweet saying that wasn't the case, Mond replied: "If one side is protesting racism, the other side is counter protesting racism. Prairie View A&Grand was created to obtain federal funds from the 2d Morrill Act (1890). Instead of integrating the TAMU campus, PVAMU was created. He killed and disenfranchised blacks."

Ross served as president of Texas A&Thousand from 1891 to 1898, and his statue was dedicated in 1919. Aggies have a long-standing tradition of placing a penny on its base of operations as a manner of honoring "Sully," who would reportedly help students with their homework, only requesting "a penny for your thoughts" in return.

This weekend, protesters for keeping the statue held signs that read "Aggie traditions matter" in response to the "Blackness Lives Matter" signs and sang the "Aggie War Hymn," the school'south fight vocal, to counter BLM protesters.

Texas A&1000 president Michael Young defended the Ross statue's place on campus in 2017 equally the national debate raged after protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, and several monuments were removed at the University of Texas in Austin. "Without Sul Ross, neither Texas A&M University nor Prairie View A&1000 University would likely exist today," Young said in a statement in 2017. "He saved our schoolhouse and Prairie View through his consistent advancement in the face of those who persistently wanted to shut u.s. down."

Texas A&M chancellor John Sharp wrote a alphabetic character to the editor of The Battalion, the school paper, in 2018 disputing whatever claims that Ross was a white supremacist and maxim that Prairie View'due south first president had one time said that Ross was "maybe the best friend black Texans e'er had" considering of his advancement for the institution.

"We are all entitled to our opinion, simply we are not entitled to our own wrongheaded facts," Abrupt added. "Lawrence Sullivan Ross will have his statue at Texas A&1000 forever, not because of obstinance, but because he deserves the honor with a lifetime of service to ALL TEXANS and ALL AGGIES."

Critics of Ross indicate to his days every bit a storied "Indian fighter" in the early Texas frontier. In the Civil War, he was defendant by Marriage generals of killing black soldiers who were captured in battle in Yazoo City, Mississippi, and threatening to utilize "no quarter" against commanders who fought alongside black soldiers against him.

This weekend, the Texas A&M history department released a statement to university administrators disputing his goodwill toward blackness citizens as governor.

"Anti-Blackness laws, poll taxes and voter intimidation, and violent attacks against people of colour were the primary way that white southerners consolidated their power in the post-Reconstruction era," the statement said. "It is unequivocally true that Ross agreed with, supported, and defended these policies until his death, even as he carried out what might be considered isolated acts of clemency towards some communities of color."

Mond, who is from San Antonio, over again replied to a since-deleted tweet that said people were spreading false information most Ross.

"You can't brand upward a FACT," Mond said. "It's a FACT for a reason. The information is out there, simply some people don't want to research because it could alter the way they perceive someone / something. IGNORANCE keeps people from UNITY & Modify."