New Orleans city council has started legal proceedings to remove four Confederate landmarks from the city, including a 131-year-old statue of General Robert E. Lee, which many black residents consider offensive.
The council passed a unanimous motion to begin a two-month period of consultations with various city agencies on whether to declare the controversial landmarks “nuisances” and have them removed.
“To maintain these symbols as we move toward our future seems to belie our progress and does not reflect who we truly are or who we want to be,” Mayor Mitch Landrieu said as cited by the New Orleans Advocate.
“I ask you, how can we expect to inspire a nation when our most prominent public spaces are dedicated to the reverence of those who fought for bondage and supremacy of our fellow Americans?” he asked.
The four monuments slated to be scrapped are: the statue of Confederate troops commander General Lee atop a 20-meter high column in Lee Circle; a monument to the Crescent City White League, a white supremacist group during the post-war Reconstruction era that was involved in an uprising against the state government in 1974; a statue of Jefferson Davis, the president of the short-lived Confederate States of America, and a statue of Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard. The mayor also wants to rename the Jefferson Davis parkway after Norman C. Francis, the retired, long-serving president of the black Catholic Xavier University of Louisiana.
Our symbols should inspire, include, & celebrate life, liberty & pursuit of happiness. Should show world we thrive on diversity. #NOLAforALL
— Mitch Landrieu (@MitchLandrieu) July 9, 2015
The debate over old Confederate symbols in New Orleans was invigorated last month by the massacre at a black church in South Carolina. Self-identified white supremacist Dylann Roof stands accused of killing nine people at a Bible-study meeting. The crime sparked mass calls to have the Confederate battle flag and other similar symbols removed from public places in the southern states.
Mayor Landrieu’s initiative, (he is the first white mayor in predominantly black New Orleans since his father Moon Landrieu held the office in the 1970s), has strong support among constituents. For many black Americans Confederate monuments symbolize racism, reminding of slavery and forced segregation in the past.
“What I think people have realized is that these symbols provoke hate,” Xavier University history professor Sharlene Sinegal DeCuir said, as cited by the Advocate. “They provoke a message of hate and enslavement. And it’s really just a negative part of US history, altogether.”
Critics of the motion believe the monuments should be kept as a reminder of New Orleans past, however dark it may be.
“Because some evil person does an evil deed does not erase history,” said Thomas Taylor, commander of the Louisiana Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. “They’re doing their best to change history.”
“We, the Sons of Confederate Veterans, also deplore what happened in South Carolina,” he said. “But an awful act by an awful person on either side of this agenda doesn’t call for knee-jerk reactions and the attempted rewrite of history.”
Im sure no one has said this one yet! #sarcasm #LeeCircleReplacement #7: Because Nobody Doesn't Like Sara Lee Circle! pic.twitter.com/Uac8HAkTbv
— Jeff (@ffbsoundguy) June 24, 2015
City officials argue the monuments incite hatred and don’t reflect the culture and history of New Orleans.
“It hearkens to a bygone era in which the power structure of this city was directly related to the White League and the white supremacy movement,” said City Council President Jason Williams. “To keep these monuments in place suggests that our power structure is still based upon those things.”
For some critics simply removing the monuments wouldn’t go far enough.
“This is a nice gesture, but it has been 131 years,” teacher Michael Moore said. “One hundred thirty-one years that Robert E. Lee’s statue has stood up there, and it’s an obvious homage to white supremacy.”
In the 1990s, Louisiana saw a campaign to change the names of dozens of schools across the state named after slave-owners. Of 51 such schools 26 were eventually renamed.
Enjoying wide public support, the removal of the monuments is virtually assured, although some argue the debate over Confederacy legacy should go beyond such landmarks.
“It is much more than saying, ‘Take down a flag, take down a monument,’ ” said Tulane University history professor R. Blakeslee Gilpin. “All those are excellent things to be having a conversation about. But white supremacy and institutional racism should be an ongoing part of the national conversation. Those are things we need to be wrestling with on a more elemental level than a superficial one.”
It’s really the piece of shit elected officials who want this. Take a poll of “A TRUE REPRESENTATION” of the population and you will see the real truth.
cant wait until its this easy to remove the shit for nothing “elected officials”
they better watch how easy it is to remove something unwanted .. they are very unwanted
I agree. It’s the confederate flag is a distraction like CHICK-FIL-A, JOE THE PLUMBER, DEATH PANELS, AUSTERITY, FISCAL CLIFF, etc…etc… Unimportant topics to lead the public around by the nose and keep sharp their ability to keep the public occupied with subjects like that, instead of the real important ones.
But does it ever matter what the people want? It’s what “officials” want that counts.
Hey Big Dan, the Confederate Flag represents American individualism and freedom. I had forefathers on both sides of that damned war. It’s not a “distraction”. The “Rebel” spirit is embodied in that sacred cloth and it is blasphemous to follow the current dictate!
Uh, some important things are being overlooked in re-writing American History.
Post ACW, Gen. Lee’s American Citizenship was restored and he became a US Ambassador.
Most CSA persons went on to make the most of their lives, either public service or privately. Quite a few that were paroled as Galvanized Yankees in the Am. West continued to fight for what the US Govt had promised them as well.
This mob mentality has to stop before we recreate the McCarthy era ‘Commie under every bed’ mentality.
there already is a commie under every bed
It’s amazing to me the bullshit nonsense they use to distract the general public’s attention away from what is really going on….
What’s even more amazing is how many fools fall for the bullshit.
Changing and/or removing a flag…. major crisis….
but no one gives a damn that our whole country has been invaded.
Surrounded by stupid….. and they are breeding…. THATS Scary.
What an incredibly sad state our country is in. Queer rainbow on OUR White House, tearing down historical sites because they hurt someones feelings (How bout that….just like the Islamic fundamentalists!!), granting wishes and dreams to everyone but the Christian white folks who are waking up too late in the game to what is happening to their world. What a sad, sad state of affairs. I weep for my children and grandchildren and the future of our people.
they have to remove something ,, the emasculated pussies cant get their hands on our guns so the limp wrist punks have gone after a flag .. just to show us how useless and unable they really are ,, they have to attack something that cant fight back
so sad they are
In other related news, Democrats…OOPS! I mean commies…OOPS! I mean REPUBLICANS pull bill to allow Confederate flags at US cemeteries:
REPUBLICANS = INSIDE JOB on the confederate flag issue
“WASHINGTON — Republican leaders abruptly withdrew an environmental spending bill from the House floor on Thursday before a final vote amid protest over an amendment that would allow Confederate flags at federal cemeteries.
The action came hours after South Carolina
lawmakersREPUBLICANS voted to remove the battle flag from the state Capitol’s grounds.”https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2015/07/09/republicans-back-down-confederate-flags-cemeteries/n8jxp2H6086Y5IyMfDOkUO/story.html?p1=Article_InThisSection_Bottom
So basically the Commies are wasting their time trying to destroy anything resembling the South in the Civil War.
Pathetic.
What’s next? Getting rid of Fort Sumter and all of the Southern Forts in the Civil War? How about all of the Southern Civil War Cemeteries (if there are any)? Gonna get rid of them, too?
Or maybe they will erase the American Flag and the Revolutionary War afterwards. It wouldn’t surprise me.
WTH??? It’s called “History” for a reason. So people can learn from it. Erasing it won’t do shit and will only make it worse. As the old saying goes, “Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it”.