New Orleans council votes on purging city of Confederate monuments

According to The Associated Press, activists on both sides of the argument will get to voice their opinions at Thursday night’s special city council meeting before a vote is taken on the ordinance.

The claims asserted by Louisiana Landmarks Society, Foundation for Historical Louisiana, Monumental Task Committee, and Beauregard Camp No. 130 challenge the city on several actions.

Members of the council also shared their opinions before the vote.

The council approved in a 6-1 vote an ordinance declaring the monuments to be public nuisances because they “honor, praise, or foster ideologies which are in conflict with the requirements of equal protection for citizens” in the U.S. Constitution.

Stacy Head, a council member at large, was the lone vote against the removal. Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard was born in St. Bernard Parish, and commanded Confederate forces in the war’s first battle.

The city has beefed up security in the chamber for Thursday’s discussion, the last before the vote, CNN affiliate WDSU reported.

Keeping the figures of the Confederacy was not about preserving racial injustice, they say, but about honoring figures who fought to protect the city.

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.

“Symbols matter and should reflect who we are as a people”, Landrieu said in a statement. SC and Alabama both chose to remove the Confederate battle flag from their statehouse grounds after it was discovered that the shooter, Dylan Roof, had posed with the flag before the shooting. He said he believes that future mayors and city councils may find other monuments should be addressed. A majority of council members and the mayor support the move, which would be one of the strongest gestures yet by American city to sever ties with Confederate history.

“I don’t need Mitch Landrieu to remind me who I am”, Gray said, adding that he is gratified that Landrieu proposed the ordinance. But Lee Circle could soon be history. It was originally called Tivoli Circle and bears that name again today.

Lee faces north, looking in the direction of his former enemy, and has stood there since 1884, the history department at the University of New Orleans says.

Their statues were erected in the 1910s.

NOLA residents and lawmakers have been embroiled in a Confederate monuments debate for months. Perhaps the most controversial of the group, the Liberty Place monument, which commemorates a failed coup led by ex-Confederates, is also in the crosshairs. “We all may have differing perspectives, but share a common love and concern for the City of New Orleans”.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu was among those who rapidly decided it was time to remove all Confederate monuments and Confederate flags, MSN reports.