On Friday, New Orleans removed its statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, the last of four controversial monuments to be taken out of the city.
The statue of Lee was erected for more 130 years. It stood at the entrance to New Orleans’s largest park. Along with three other Confederate Statues, it sat in the middle of a major traffic circle.
After approximately two years debate over what the Confederate statues represented, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu publicly denounced the monuments in a speech. “They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, ignoring the terror that it actually stood for,” he said.
Since April, there has been a national controversy over the removal of the city’s Confederate statues. Those in favor of taking down the monuments see them as representing Southern pride and racial oppression.
On the other hand, people wanting the statues to remain took a major call to arms. Viewing the statues as symbols of Southern history and honor, many protesters held 24-hour vigils in the city. During a face-off with activists in favor of the statues’ removal, some protesters armed themselves with guns and strings of ammunition. Others wore flak jackets and riot gear.
Protesters also targeted contractors involved in removing the statues. One contractor pulled out of the removal after an arsonist set his $200,000 Lamborghini on fire.
Though the protests have settled down in New Orleans, the controversy surrounding Confederate monuments, merchandise, and memorabilia continues around the country. Many Americans disagree on what to do with Confederate symbols in public spaces.
In the two years since white supremacist Dylann Roof murdered nine black parishioners in a Charleston, South Carolina, church, at least 60 Confederate symbols have been removed or renamed, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
New Orleans joined this campaign to remove Confederate memorials shortly after the Charlestown church shooting. In December 2015, the New Orleans City Council voted 6 to 1 to remove the four Confederate monuments at the city’s entrance.
Carol Anderson, author of White Rage and professor African American studies at Emory University, is in favor of these removals, stating that defenders of Confederate symbols expect white power and influence to go unchallenged.
“These are people who believe that they are actually oppressed and disadvantaged whenever anyone else’s voice is heard, their needs addressed and their political will prevails,” said Anderson.
Also in support of removing the statues is black New Orleans resident James E. Miller, 85. Raised in Birmingham, Alabama, by his great-grandparents, who were both born slaves, Miller personally experienced the white anger and violence surrounding the civil rights movement.
“Some days, I’m not able to understand how anyone alive can claim that the Confederacy was not a treasonous regime,” Miller said.
On the other side of the argument, defenders of Confederate symbols say that mass removal only shows the tyranny of political correctness. These persons also claim that there is a decline in white dominance.
Among these defenders is self-described white nationalist Richard Spencer from Boston, Massachusetts. Last week Spencer led a protest in front of the Charlottesville statue of Robert E. Lee, which the city plans to sell in an auction. The crowd, entirely made up of white people, held up tiki torches.
“What brings us together is that we are white, we are a people, we will not be replaced,” said Spencer.
Baton Rouge resident Karl Burkhalter, 61, disagrees with Confederate statue removal as well. Burkhalter, who is white, kept a 24-hour vigil near the Jefferson Davis statue in New Orleans.
According to Burkhalter, “these monuments were a reflection of the fact that the only bit of self-esteem so many white people down here had left was tied to the sacrifices they had made for the Confederacy.”
Similarly, 66-year-old Vietnam War veteran Nick Glover, who is white, sees the New Orleans statues’ removal as an official act to “dishonor men of valor.” Glover, whose ancestors fought for the Confederacy, believes the Confederate generals honored with monuments defended liberty.
According to Glover, “This right here is a history that’s got to be honored and preserved. I think we ought to be able to celebrate that without all the talk about white supremacy and slavery.”
Numerous New Orleans residents share Glover’s feelings, as well as beliefs in an unblemished heritage. To them, the North began the Civil War, which was not about slavery. Slaves were well treated, while Reconstruction and civil rights for blacks led to danger and corruption. These beliefs are what fueled a pro-South narrative of the Civil War in the 1870s, inspiring the creation of the now contested Confederate memorials.
Consequentially, some residents, including Glover, believe that Landrieu, the city’s first white mayor since the 1970s, created the idea that the statues are offensive. His father, Maurice Landrieu served as New Orleans’s mayor and as a state legislator in the 1960s and 1970s. During his career, Landrieu added more black staffers to the city’s mostly white government. He also was one of the only lawmakers who voted to integrate Louisiana’s schools.
“Nobody in New Orleans had any kind of a problem with these monuments,” said Glover. “It simply makes no sense to take them down because Mitch and his daddy don’t like them or, maybe Mitch needs a career.”
Current mayor Landrieu denies that his support of the statues’ removal is personal.
The controversy set aside, New Orleans has removed all four Confederate monuments. Because of the threats made against city officials, activists, contractors and work crews involved in the removals, the monuments are now in an undisclosed location.
According to city officials, a water feature will replace the Lee statue, while an American flag will replace the Davis statue. Officials have yet to decide on what will replace the statue of Beauregard, a prominent Confederate general.
In the near future, nonprofits and government agencies will be able to submit plans for moving the statues to private property.
