Dallas made a powerful statement about the kind of city we want to be when it removed the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in September.

The City Council vote signaled that the time had come for the painful reminders of this country's racist past to go. Now the council faces decisions about how to move forward with other proposals offered by Mayor Mike Rawlings' Confederate monuments task force.

Last May, this newspaper first detailed our point of view on the statues controversy, calling for the removal of two tributes to the Confederacy: the Lee statue in the green space that has since been renamed Oak Lawn Park and the Confederate War Memorial in front of the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center.

As we've argued in previous editorials, these stand-alone symbols serve as tributes to the side of the Civil War that fought to keep human beings in bondage. Continuing to pay homage to that cause is unnecessarily divisive and out of touch.

We felt the same when we pushed in recent years for the renaming of Dallas schools named for Confederate leaders and to stop the flying of the Confederate flag.

For those reasons, Dallas is best served if City Council members follow the task force recommendation and approve the removal of the Confederate War Memorial.

The latest from city staff is that it will be difficult to move the statues that make up the downtown memorial without damaging them. The way staff sees it, it's better to leave the monument in place and surround it with signs that put the statue in context.

We disagree.

Although both the money and work involved are not insignificant, this stone tribute should be removed. Sitting between the convention center and Dallas City Hall, the Confederate War Memorial sends the wrong message to residents and visitors to our city.

Wednesday the City Council will also hear recommendations on where to relocate the downtown monument and the Lee statue, currently in storage. The historical value of these pieces makes them worthy of a museum. But where they end up is less important at this point than removing the Confederate War Memorial from its current location.

Other task force proposals that we've favored — and that will be discussed Wednesday by the City Council — include:

Creating a Fair Park Art Working Group and hiring a local consultant to create signs that would "add full historical context to Fair Park art."

Commemorating the Hall of Negro Life, which was built for the Texas Centennial Exposition in 1936 and then destroyed.

Securing a Texas historical marker at Akard and Main streets, where Allen Brooks was lynched from the Elks' Arch on March 3, 1910.

Dallas and this country are still living in the shadows of the enduring legacy of Jim Crow segregation. Removing the Confederate War Memorial and following other task force suggestions will go a long way to casting a better legacy for our city.

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