New Orleans Council Votes to Remove Four Confederate Monuments

The New Orleans city council Thursday voted 6-1 to remove four monuments related to the Confederacy, declaring the statues a “public nuisance.”

Statues of Robert E. Lee, Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, and Confederate president Jefferson Davis, as well as a pillar dedicated to the Battle of Liberty Place will be removed from the city, The Times-Picayune reports.

“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. “Members of the council, that day is today. The Confederacy, you see, was on the wrong side of history and humanity.”

Councilman James Gray, who is black, denounced the statues for memorizing “murderers and rapists.”

“I am happy and impressed that we have a white mayor who understands a little bit what it means to be an African American and he’s on our side on this,” Gray said.

Council member at-large Stacy Head was the only member to vote against the proposal, asking instead for a resolution that would leave the statues of Lee and Beauregard in place, but add explanatory placards to the monuments. “I think all we will be left with is pain and division,” Head said of the decision to remove the statues.

But Mayor Landrieu argued it was the right decision for the city, insisting if New Orleans wants to move forward, “we must reckon with our past.” The discussion, he said, was about whether monuments “built to reinforce the false valor of a war fought over slavery” belonged in a city “whose lifeblood flows from our diversity and inclusiveness.”

[Image via Wikimedia Commons]

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