The New Orleans City Council voted today to remove four Confederate statutes located throughout the city. The council, which voted six to one in favor, has been on the issue since July. Naturally, this issue has caused divisiveness in the city. Current Mayor Mitch Landrieu has pointed out his administration is not the first to tackle this issue, and he is correct.
The difference this time around is the timing: Much of the effort was spurred by the racist mass murder at Charleston, South Carolina’s Emanuel AME Church. The confessed shooter, Dylann Roof, appeared in photographs with the flags of Rhodesia (now known as Zimbabwe) and the U.S. Confederacy, two historic bastions of white supremacy.
The main grassroots organization behind the effort to remove the statues is Take’ Em Down NOLA. The group says it wants the city of New Orleans to take down all symbols of white supremacy. According to their website:
“These structures litter our city with visual reminders of the horrid legacy of slavery that terrorized so many of this city's ancestors. They misrepresent our community. We demand the freedom to live in a city where we are not forced to pay taxes for the maintenance of public symbols that demean us and psychologically terrorize us.”
While Take ‘Em Down NOLA wants all symbols removed, today’s city council vote revolved around four specific structures.
- A 16-foot-tall bronze statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee stands atop a 60-foot-high Doric marble column, which itself rises over granite slabs on an earthen mound. Four sets of stone staircases, aligned with the major compass points, ascend the mound. The statue has stood since 1884.
- A bronze figure of Confederate President Jefferson Davis that stands at Canal Street and Jefferson Davis Parkway
- A stature of Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, commander of Confederate forces at the Civil War's first battle, who straddles a prancing horse at the entrance to City Park.
- An 1891 obelisk called “Liberty Monument,” honoring the Crescent City White League, which physically attacked the integrated Metropolitan Police Force in 1874.
And then there are those who want to keep the monuments. The most prominent—and probably most legitimate—is the Monumental Task Committee, which says it has collected 30,000 signatures urging the city to keep the monuments. According to the mayor’s office, many of those 30,000 signatures were not from New Orleans residents.
Other supporters could be lumped into the “All History Matters” movement. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
Now that the vote has passed, a timetable for the statues’ removal will have to be decided. No word yet on when that will occur.