Federal lawsuit over Confederate monuments

Mayor Mitch Landrieu and The City of New Orleans are named as defendants in the case along with the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Transit Authority. An obelisk marking the Battle of Liberty Place in the city will also come down.

No word on when the statues of Robert E. Lee, P.G.T. Beauregard and Jefferson Davis will be removed.

The four statues were erected in between 1884 and 1915.

Council member Stacy Head cast the only vote against taking down the monuments, saying the action would create more division and not solve the city’s real problems.

The monument to the Battle of Liberty Place commemorates an uprising in 1874 of the White League against federal forces and police in an attempt to overthrow racially integrated governance put in place during Reconstruction.

That monument was relocated from the foot of Canal Street to an obscure corner behind the Westin Hotel at the foot of Iberville Street.

She lamented what she called a rush to take the monuments down without adequate consideration of their historic value and meaning to many in New Orleans. It was an emotional meeting – typically interrupted by heckling – infused with references to slavery, lynchings & racism, in addition to the pleas of those in that opposed removing the monuments to not “rewrite history”.

The move comes after SC was forced to bring down the Confederate flag that had flown over the state’s capital for 54 years last summer.

A week later, Landrieu announced the planned ordinance. “My legal opinion is I think not”. Now, the city faces possible lawsuits seeking to keep the monuments where they are.

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

The Robert E. Lee monument in New Orleans.

And while there were several public hearings on the matter, the suit alleges that some opinions were valued more than others. New Orleans is poised to make a sweeping break with its Confederate past as it contemplates removing prominent Confederate monuments now standing on some of its busiest streets.

The plaintiffs argued that the removal of the monuments violates the state Constitution since that document allows for “the right of people to preserve foster and promote their respective historic linguistic and cultural origins”.

“As we approach the Tricentennial, New Orleanians have the power and the right to correct historical wrongs and move the City forward”, he added.

“Have these public monuments done justice to our city and our heritage?” Both Davis and Beauregard attended the monument’s dedication. They also claim the New Orleans City Council ignored the City’s own protocol for receipt of donations.

New Orleans, which was the Confederacy’s largest city, surrendered in 1862 and was under Federal occupation beyond the Civil War’s end in 1865.