TEXARKANA, Texas - A downtown Confederate monument on Friday was the focus of emotion and heated debate as people for and against its removal clashed beneath it.
A demonstration in favor of removing the monument was met by counterprotesters, and about 100 people gathered to express themselves, often angrily trying to shout one another down.
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There was no violence, nor any police presence, at the demonstration organized by local activist Bess Gamble Williams, a veteran who argued for removing the monument to Confederate mothers because of the association with racism it has for many, especially African Americans.
"It stands for hate, and it stands for slavery, and it stands for control, and it stands for exertion. Because if that statue had went through, if they had succeeded, I tell you all of us with brown and black skin wouldn't be standing here right now," Williams said.
Small groups had gathered around the monument and were engaged in discussion when Aylin Sozen, a young Black Lives Matter protester, noticed a display on the grass including a plush chimpanzee inside a loop of rope.
The man who set up the display - which seemed to be some kind of game, also included other stuffed animals, a large bell, boxes of pecans and plastic coins - declined to identify himself or explain it when separately approached by two Gazette reporters.
"Why is there a monkey in a noose?" Sozen shouted, and the gathering erupted, with those on both sides of the conflict loudly making their points.
Sozen asked the man operating the game why he would chose that particular stuffed animal.
"Do you not know what this symbolizes? You chose that animal. You put it in a noose," she said. "It's a monkey in a noose."
The man replied that the stuffed monkey was in a lasso.
The protesters consolidated around a spot on a sidewalk where an often-chaotic sort of debate played out as watchers urged all to remain calm and allow one another to speak.
Texas High School student Margaret Matoke, 16, spoke out, addressing those who asserted that all lives matter.
"I'm 16 and I've seen so many people die in the streets that looked like me," she said. "We are targeted on purpose. I have a clean record and I make all A's in school. I love my mom and I don't want to think about her if something happened to me."
Steve Duncan, 66, said God had told him "to come stand as a wall" in defense of the monument.
"Enough is enough," he said. "Prejudice today is in people's hearts."
Oscar Ruiz carried a sign that said "LGBTQ stands with Black Lives Matter,"
"It's about solidarity," he said. "This is a racist part of history that is long overdue," he said, suggesting the statue be put in a museum.
"My deal is this is for the mothers of the Confederacy. We should not tarnish that and not take it down," Debbie Van Over said.
Van Over said people who want the statue to stay needed to sign a petition and they needed to call City Hall and voice their concerns.
Armani Valentino, the Democratic nominee for Bowie County judge, called for a City Council vote on removing the monument.
"I am not for any monument of any kind that disrespects God's children in any way, shape, form or fashion," he said.