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Dallas mayor's Confederate monuments task force has mixed feelings on statues' future

Dallas sculptor Barvo Walker adores the statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee that overlooks Turtle Creek Boulevard. And it has nothing to do with Lee.

"It is one of the finest equestrian statues in the country," said Walker, referring to Traveller, Lee's horse. And for that one reason alone, said Walker, he would like to see the statue "kept where it is because it's such a marvelous piece of art."

Walker will actually have a say in the statue's fate. He is among the 20 members appointed to Mayor Mike Rawlings' Task Force on Confederate Monuments unveiled Thursday. Walker will be joined by, among others, an architect, a professor and multiple attorneys, preservationists and a handful of religious leaders.

A majority of the City Council has made it clear they want the monuments to come down -- preferably sooner than later. But several members of the task force said Thursday they had conflicting views about the monuments' fates.

As such, Walker said, "the mayor was wise to appoint a committee rather than make an arbitrary decision to take them down or keep them." Walker, who is working on a memorial in honor of the officers slain in the July 7, 2016, ambush, said he's willing to listen to fellow task force members before coming to any conclusions.

In Austin: The Sons of Confederate Veterans group is suing the University of Texas at Austin for the second time in three years over the removal of statues from the flagship campus' main mall.

Commentary: Ten people in Dallas describe what the city’s Confederate statues mean to them.