New Orleans council votes to remove Confederate monuments

A participant holds a sign during a December 10 rally as confederate heritage supporters bear confederate flags nearby in front of City Hall in New Orleans.

“The Confederacy, you see, was on the wrong side of history and humanity”, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu reportedly said in urging city council to either mothball the statues or put them in a museum.

After almost six months of debate, the New Orleans City Council voted to remove four monuments dedicated to Confederate history in New Orleans.

Thursday morning’s vote is expected to draw protesters from both sides and security has been increased.

When asked what would happen to the removed monuments, Landrieu suggested a park that would reflect the complete history of the city, from before the American Revolution to the present.

“This has never happened before”, said Charles Kelly Barrow, commander-in-chief of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Confederate symbols and monuments have always been controversial in the United States, where they are beloved by some residents of the once slave-owning southern states which seceded during the 1861-1865 Civil War, but reviled by those who see them as racist.

Geographers have identified at least 872 parks, natural features, schools, streets and other locations named for major Confederate leaders in 44 states, according to a mapping project.

The monuments don’t represent history but a “false version” created to “reinforce a very specific ideology”, he said.

“The time surely comes when [Justice] must and will be heard”, Mayor Mitch Landrieu – who proposed the move after the Charleston, SC shootings last June – told the council.

On Tuesday, a volunteer group that looks after monuments across the city said it had collected about 31,000 signatures of people opposed to the removal of the monuments. “The process for removing the other three monuments could begin in days”.

Keeping the figures of the Confederacy was not about preserving racial injustice, they say, but about honoring figures who fought to protect the city. Since then, SC and Alabama rid their capitol building grounds of Confederate battle flags, while the University of MS took down the state flag because it includes the Confederate emblem.

Anti-Confederate sentiment has grown since then around the country, along with protests against police mistreatment, as embodied by the Black Lives Matter movement.

The statue of Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard was cleaned Monday by a City contractor after it was vandalized over the weekend.

– An 1891 obelisk honoring the Crescent City White League. Musician Wynton Marsalis, who is African American, said that Lee in particular has no historic place in the city.

“The South that I know and understand is better than that”, he added.

Susan Guidry, who hadn’t tipped her hand until the vote, came out with an impassioned critique of the monuments.