City of New Orleans to Begin Removal of Final Confederate Monument Robert E. Lee Statue at Lee Circle Celebrating the “Lost Cause of the Confederacy”, Outlines Future Plans for Statues and Former Statue Locations Post-Removal
NEW
ORLEANS – Tomorrow, City officials will continue the process to remove the last remaining monument that prominently
celebrates the “Lost Cause of the Confederacy.” The statues being removed were
erected decades after the Civil War to celebrate the “Cult of the Lost Cause,”
a movement recognized across the South as celebrating and promoting white
supremacy. Mayor
Landrieu is expected to make remarks tomorrow afternoon.
There are four prominent
monuments in question. The Battle of Liberty Place monument, which was removed
nearly four weeks ago, was erected by the Crescent City White League to
remember the deadly insurrection led by white supremacists against the City’s
racially integrated police department and government. The Jefferson Davis
statue on Jefferson Davis Parkway was removed last week. The P.G.T. Beauregard
equestrian statue on Esplanade Avenue at the entrance to City Park was removed
earlier this week. The statue coming down tomorrow is the Robert E. Lee statue at
Lee Circle.
TRAFFIC ADVISORY
The process to remove the
Robert E. Lee statue at Lee Circle is expected to begin
between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Friday, May 19. The New Orleans
Police Department (NOPD) will be present to ensure public safety. The public is
encouraged to be safe, patient and prepared for disruptions to vehicular and
pedestrian access to streets in surrounding areas.
Beginning 4 a.m. on Friday, May 19, several streets around the
area of Lee Circle will be closed to thru traffic. Road closures will be set at
the following intersections: Calliope and Carondelet, St. Charles and Calliope,
Howard and Carondelet, St. Joseph and St. Charles, and Camp St. and Andrew
Higgins Drive. Normal traffic will resume by 5 p.m. on Friday, May 19.
To protect the safety of the public, including protesters on both
sides and the public’s property, the NOPD will be closing streets to vehicular
traffic within a one-block radius of Lee Circle immediately before and during
the removal process.
Citizens have a right to assemble and exercise their First
Amendment rights to free speech and peaceful protest. We understand there are
strong emotions surrounding this subject, and we ask that the public remain
peaceful and respectful while demonstrating. Out of an abundance of caution,
the City’s Office of Homeland Security and the NOPD have taken extraordinary
security measures and dedicated the necessary public safety resources to
maintain law and order while protecting workers and all people exercising their
right to peacefully protest.
NOPD is well trained to use the
highest standards to protect people and property while ensuring the law is
followed and is prepared to take necessary actions to ensure public safety. As
a reminder, vandalism of any public property is strictly prohibited.
Parking enforcement personnel
will be monitoring illegal parking, including blocked hydrants, driveways and
sidewalks, or cars parked within 20 feet of a crosswalk, intersection or stop
signs. Motorists are also reminded to park in the direction of travel on
one-way streets and with the right wheel to the curb on two-way streets.
In addition, RTA services,
including bus service, may be interrupted during this event. Details on any
route changes are available at www.norta.com.
In December 2015, Mayor Landrieu signed an ordinance calling for
the removal and relocation of the four prominent Confederate monuments
displayed publicly in the City of New Orleans, citing that these statues
did not reflect the diversity, values or full history of the City and should be
removed. During a Special Meeting of the New Orleans City Council, members of
the City Council voted 6-1 in support of Ordinance Calendar No. 31,082, which
declared that the four Confederate monuments are nuisances pursuant to Section
146-611 of the Code of the City of New Orleans and should be removed from their
prominent locations in New Orleans.
The City is in the process of
determining a more appropriate place to display the statues post-removal, such
as a museum or other site, where they can be placed in their proper historical
context from a dark period of American history. They will be crated and stored
during this process.
The removal of the statues
follows a final decision on
March 8, 2017 by the United States District Court of the Eastern District of
Louisiana affirming the City’s legal right to remove the statue. Just last
week, Civil District Court Kern Reese denied a third request for preliminary
injunction specifically confirming City’s right to move the Beauregard statue.
WHERE THE MONUMENTS
ARE GOING
The
City has been in the process of determining a more appropriate place to display
the statues post-removal, such as a museum or other site, where they can be
placed in their proper historical context from a dark period of American
history. The statues are in the process of being crated and are being stored in
City-owned warehouses or secure facilities.
Now,
as offers to take individual monuments have come in from both public and
private institutions, the City has decided that a competitive RFP process will
facilitate the open and transparent selection of where they ultimately go and
how they can be presented as educational tools with historical context.
Only nonprofit
and governmental entities will be eligible to enter into a cooperative endeavor
agreement to host the statues. The RFP process will be used for the
Battle of Liberty Place statue, the Jefferson Davis statue, and the Robert E.
Lee statue.
Proposals will
be able to be submitted for statues individually or as a group. All
proposals must state how they will place the statues in context, both in terms
of why they were first erected and why the City chose to remove them in 2015.
The
statues will not be able to be displayed outdoors on public property in Orleans
Parish.
The
RFP is expected to be released in the coming weeks, with proposals due this
summer. A public selection committee made up of City officials will make
a recommendation for entities to receive and display the statues, with approval
by the City Council.
Due to the complexity of the legal issues surrounding the property on which the PGT Beauregard monument was situated, the City and the City Park Improvement Association will continue to have good-faith discussions regarding that property; the statue will be considered separately based on the result of those discussions.
WHAT
IS GOING IN THEIR PLACE
The
area that formerly housed the Jefferson Davis statue on Jefferson Davis Parkway
will be replaced by an American flag. The area that formerly housed the
Battle of Liberty Place monument will remain as is.
The City Park
Improvement Association will also take a leading role in determining what
replaces the Beauregard monument at the entrance to City Park, in partnership
with the City and other civic groups. The remaining part of the base will be
removed in due course.
As
previously detailed, the City plans to leave the column that houses the Robert
E. Lee statue intact. The City will also be undertaking public
infrastructure improvements to include a water feature at the circle. The
circle will be able to incorporate public art. The City has begun the process
to design the public infrastructure improvements to be ready for the public art.
The goal is to
complete the sites during the City’s tricentennial year in 2018.
HISTORY OF THE STATUES AND THE “LOST CAUSE OF THE
CONFEDERACY”
The four Confederate monuments
in New Orleans were erected between 1884 and 1915, after Reconstruction and
during the era of Jim Crow laws. Three depict individuals deeply influential
within the Confederacy, and the fourth honors an insurrection of mostly
Confederate veterans who battled against the City's racially integrated police
and state militia.
The Robert E. Lee, the
Jefferson Davis, and the P.G.T. Beauregard monuments were erected to promote
“The Lost Cause of the Confederacy.” Emerging at the end of the Civil War, “The
Lost Cause” was known for espousing a number of principles, including that the
war was fought over states’ rights and not slavery, that slavery was a benevolent
institution that offered Christianity to African “savages”, and that the war
was a just cause in the eyes of God.
The Battle of Liberty Place
monument on Iberville Street, was
erected in 1891 (originally on Canal Street) in honor of the Battle of Liberty
Place, an 1874 insurrection of the Crescent City White League, a group of all
white, mostly Confederate veterans, who battled against the City’s racially integrated
police and state militia. The monument was meant to honor the members of the
White League who died during the battle. In 1932, the City added a plaque to
the monument, which stated that the statue commemorated the “overthrow of
carpetbag government, ousting the usurpers…and the national election of
November 1876 recognized white supremacy in the South and gave us our
state." In 1989, construction on Canal Street forced the removal of the
monument, but it was relocated to its past location on Iberville Street in
1993. At that time, the 1932 white supremacist plaque was covered with a new
slab of granite honoring "those Americans on both sides of the conflict
who died.”
The Jefferson Davis statue on Jefferson Davis Parkway, was
erected in 1911 in honor of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy.
It was commissioned by the Jefferson Davis Memorial Association.
The Robert E. Lee statue at Lee Circle was erected in 1884 in honor of
Robert E. Lee, the Confederate General for the Army of Northern Virginia, at
the site formerly known as “Tivoli Circle.” Despite the fact that Lee has no
significant ties to New Orleans, this monument was commissioned by The Robert
E. Lee Monumental Association of New Orleans.
The P.G.T. Beauregard
equestrian statue on Esplanade Avenue at the
entrance to City Park, was erected in 1915 in honor of Pierre Gustave Toutant
Beauregard, a General of the Confederate army who led the attack on Fort
Sumter, which marked the beginning of the Civil War. The Beauregard National
Register of Historic Places nomination says that “the General Beauregard
Equestrian Statue…is one of three major Louisiana monuments representing what
is known by historians as the “Cult of the Lost Cause.” Statues of this type
are tangible symbols of a state of mind which was powerful and pervasive
throughout the South well into the twentieth century and some would say even
today.”
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