“We’re proud, not racist,” says San Antonio Confederate militia

FILE - In this July 19, 2011 file photo, Confederate battle flags fly outside the museum at the Confederate Memorial Park in Mountain Creek, Ala., Tuesday, July 19, 2011. Major retailers are halting sales of the Confederate flag after the June 17, 2015 shooting deaths of nine black church members in South Carolina. (AP Photo/Dave Martin, File)

This Is Texas Freedom Force (TITFF), the group behind the protest over the removal of a Confederate monument in San Antonio last Saturday, says it’s just trying to preserve Texas’ history.

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The group, who showed up decked out in camouflage fatigues and carrying firearms, says its actions aren’t motivated by race, according to the San Antonio Current.

“We would not stand up to support anything having to do with race,” their leader Robert Beverly told the Current Tuesday. However, he later commented on the general laziness of black people.

RELATED: Three options for dealing with Confederate statues that neither whitewash racism nor erase history

The debate over Texas Confederate monuments is nothing new, but the Black Lives Matter movement brought it back to the forefront of the collective consciousness in July after New Orleans got rid of its monuments to the Confederacy.

Those civil rights advocates saw it as an opportunity to continue the momentum in Texas, and remove monuments dedicated to those who fought for slavery in the Civil War.

Counter-protestors showed up last weekend to advocate for removing the monument, and police intervened to keep them and TITFF apart. Beverly told the Current that was a good thing, believing the “opposition” was to blame for violent encounters like to one in Charlottesville, and that further violence might result without police intervention.

RELATED: Check out what vandals did to Houston’s Christopher Columbus Statue amid the Confederate statue outrage

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