KPAG said:
Kellen Mond's ancestory does NOT change the facts :
Sully still fought for the confederate; to keep slavery
Sully was still the negro killer......
Sully statue represents racism and oppression.....
LIES I'll fix them for you....
Sully still fought for the confederate;
because he was a Texan and thought that he should.Sully was
called the N**** Killer in one newspaper article with no context and we don't know the relationship to the author or his motives. Sully statue represents
honorable things that Sul Ross did for Texas A&M University and not every aspect of his life.Specifically we honor him for the things on the plaque.
Sul Ross was 26 when the civil war ended his legacy was hardly complete at that point but his lifelong contributions should be considered:
Ross did indeed serve in the Confederate army, as did thousands of Texans including the entire 1883 inaugural faculty at The University of Texas.
He returned home to Waco and received a full presidential pardon. He was one of the most vocal supporters of local education for all. He worked with a number of African-American and Indian families as the region struggled to recover. Known for his impartial fairness he was recruited to run for sheriff and arrested a growing gang of white-criminal squatters who preyed on people across East Texas. He abhorred mob violence and was swift to advocate harsh punishment for violators. To emphasis law and order he was the founder and catalyst in 1874 for the Sheriff's Association of Texas, which still functions today.
His only other known memberships was as a Mason (the College Station lodge is named in his honor) and a supporter of a veterans group that raised funding and assistance for the widowed and orphaned families.
As a state senator, he championed education, frontier improvements and agricultural affairs. In 1886 he was elected governor by one of the largest percentage vote totals of any governor in Texas. A fiscal conservative, he balanced the state budget yet insisted that education at all levels be funded.
Texas A&M and Prairie View Normal College would not be here today if it was not for Sul Ross. When opponents in Austin attacked, he went directly to the Legislature to prevent it from cutting off funding to both schools.Ross continued to lead the efforts to expand African-American rural schools when radical Democrats wanted to de-fund support of local black education and he halted numerous attempts to attack the funding for Prairie View, fighting and demanding the Legislature to do the right thing. He won and provided additional funding and jobs after
establishing one of the first agricultural experiment stations at an African-American college in the United States.When African-American Sen. William Holland proposed the hospital for the "Deaf, Dumb and Blind Colored Institute" (today MHMR), Ross supported the full funding.
Against massive opposition from the radical white Democrats, he appointed Holland, a Union Army war veteran, as its first director. When asked why, Ross simply noted, "He was the best man for the job."Concerned with the Texas criminal process, he insisted on a review and upon receiving the report he realized the inequity of justice and
pardoned more African Americans than all the previous governors combined.One of his greatest accomplishments was the support of Prairie View A&M. While opponents in Austin yearly worked to kill funding, Ross made sure the only public school of high education for African Americans would grow and prosper.
Ross hired close personal friend, Professor Edward L. Blackshear, the former director of African=American schools in Austin when he was governor in the late 1880s, to become the 'principal' (president) of Prairie View. Blackshear, the most prominent black educator and leader in Texas, testified to the "nobility of his character and his genuine support of education for colored youths."Ross hosted Blackshear, his staff and students both at his residence on the A&M campus but also at his home in Waco.
To encourage the growth of black education, he arranged special reduced train rates for the Black Baptist State Association to hold its annual meetings in Bryan, giving a chance for him and Blackshear to urge the clergy to promote education back home in their congregations.
