Four monuments in New Orleans honoring its Confederate past could be replaced. Mayor Mitch Landrieu says it’s time to let go of symbols of a divisive history and replace them with others reflecting a culture of unity for the future.
Mayor Landrieu is calling on city officials to consider removing statues of Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and General P.G.T. Beauregard, and Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
Lee is in Lee Circle downtown. Davis is on the Mid-City parkway that bears his name. Beauregard is in front of the Esplanade Avenue entrance to City Park.
The fourth is the White League monument stuck in an awkward spot near a parking garage at the foot of Canal Street. It honors a Reconstruction-era rebellion against the integrated Metropolitan New Orleans Police Force. Eleven members of that force were killed.
Landrieu says it’s time for a change.
“One part of that broad effort has got to be to examine the symbols throughout our history, like the Robert E. Lee statue in Lee Circle, for example. There may have been a time when that monument reflected who we were as a city, but times change. And so do we.”
Landrieu made the announcement after addressing a coalition founded a year ago to focus on issues of race and reconciliation.
