Al Edwards: Statue-esque

I cannot make crap like this up ...

BLACK CAUCUS MEMBERS CLASH OVER JUNETEENTH STATE CAPITOL MONUMENT
Dukes says one of the statues looks like Edwards

A member of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus tried to block funding for a planned Juneteenth Memorial Monument at the State Capitol because, she said, one of the sculpted figures looks like a caucus colleague.

During an House Appropriations Committee hearing Thursday, Rep. Dawnna Dukes (D-Austin) offered a rider to the budget that would stop any state funds going to monuments depicting a living person currently serving as an elected official. She later withdrew the rider.

Dukes' target was Rep. Al Edwards (D-Houston), who has, during a lengthy legislative career, carried legislation setting up both the Juneteenth State Holiday and the Texas Emancipation Juneteenth Cultural and Historical Commission.

"For years people have been tiptoeing around this for fear of offending African Americans or Al Edwards," Dukes said. "But the fact is that the face on the 'law maker' character on the monument is that of Al Edwards. There's no ifs, and, or buts about it."

Click here for a picture of the monument, and here for a conceptual picture of where the monument would be located on the Capitol grounds.

Seriously, this is getting weirder and weirder by the day ... and "bad" weird at that. Al ... I've gotta think it's time for a town hall meeting already and the DNC gig is tilting from "I'll wait to see a few more votes" to "Ya know, maybe this is the last shoe." Dawnna Dukes speaks with a lot more credibility than I do on this matter and the sense of irritation over Al Edwards seems to be rather pent up. I'm guessing it ain't just the statue that's got her panties in a wad.

ADD-ON: Googling around, I see the Austin Chronicle has an article from a few years back on the origins of the statue:

A statue commemorating the African-American experience in Texas was recently approved, as was one honoring Tejanos. For black Texans, the process toward implementation was long, but the statue has been promoted from a proposed placement on the Capitol's back lawn to the southwest grounds -- the same distance from Congress Avenue as the monument devoted to Confederate soldiers. The statue is now being designed, and the project's prime mover, state Rep. Al Edwards of Houston, says it will include multiple figures and represent elements of tyranny, slavery, emancipation, and jubilation -- with an emphasis on jubilation. "I want it in an area," Rep. Edwards says, "where [black Texans] can gather around it and have ceremonies in later years, whether we" -- the generation which fought for its placement -- "are here or not."

ADD-ON 2.0: More googling ... more curiosities ... Al's no stranger to vanity, it seems. Check out the site devoted to Texas' Juneteenth holiday. Now, in fairness, Al was a leader in getting Juneteenth on holiday status and for something that was once a Texas-only holiday to be a nationally recognized day is no minor acheivement. But does that much vanity strike anyone else as a bit over the top ... or is it just me?

There's also this very unusual entry into Al's bio: "In May 1994, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the African American Biographical Association in Atlanta, GA." Are my googling skills off, or are the only references to this group online both pointing to Al Edwards biographies? Again, nothing really untowards about this. But the degree of vanity is just confounding.

UPDATE: Via BOR, here's the imagery for the statue. I gotta say, that jubilant "lawmaker" certainly does strike me as a dead ringer for Al Edwards.