New Orleans Considers Removing Confederate Monuments

A large crowd broke into cheers Thursday after the New Orleans City Council voted to remove four monuments to the Confederacy from prominent places in the city.

The monuments named in the ordinance are the Robert E. Lee statue at Lee Circle, the P.G.T. Beauregard statue at the end of Esplanade Avenue by City Park, the Jefferson Davis statue on Jefferson Davis Parkway at Canal Street, and the Battle of Liberty Place monument on Iberville Street.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu has been talking about having the symbols removed for about a year, but requested to officially topple the statues a week after the Charleston Church shooting in June.

If approved, this would be one of the most sweeping gestures yet by an American city to sever ties with Confederate history. Councilwoman Stacy Head was the lone dissenting vote.

“The Lee Monument, the Beauregard equestrian monument, the Jefferson Davis monument and the Liberty Monument were explicitly erected to preserve, foster and promote the historic and cultural origins of the citizens of New Orleans and the residents of Louisiana”, the suit reads.

In New Orleans, the mayor asked the council to take a closer look at monuments that have always been part of the city’s landscape.

“It would be better for all our children, black and white, to see symbols in prominent places in our city that make them feel proud of their city and inspire them to greatness”, Landrieu told the New Orleans City Council in July. His administration said it would cost $170,000 to take the monuments down and put them in a warehouse until a new location is found for them — perhaps in a park or museum. He said he believes that future mayors and city councils may find other monuments should be addressed. But others say that would be an assault on the city’s rich cultural and historic history.

“I offered a compromise”, said Head.

“There may be people who only see their ancestors fighting nobly in wars”, countered an anti-monuments speaker. Four sets of stone staircases, aligned with the major compass points, ascend the mound.

“This process began with a man of privilege apologizing for slavery and moving to remove four monuments decided upon by him”. Lee, P.G.T. Beauregard and Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy. “Williams said, “‘If anybody wins here, it will be the South, because it is finally rising”.

The members of the council, who then had time to speak, were passionate in their addresses and left little question as to which way they would vote.

According to a City Hall press release, Landrieu said before the meeting: “As we approach the Tricentennial, New Orleanians have the power and the right to correct historical wrongs and move the City forward”.

Divergent views on what should happen to the monuments were voiced at a lively, and sometimes disorderly, city council meeting today.

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