Confederate monument update (LA)
September 08, 2015
By Alex Woodward
... The so-called Liberty Monument (currently at the end of Iberville Street near the riverfront streetcar line) is among the most controversial of four landmarks up for debate. In 1874, nearly a decade after the Civil War, in an attempted coup to overthrow the local Reconstruction government, members of the Crescent City White League took up arms against the Metropolitan Police and state military. The White League succeeded for a short time, but federal troops quickly restored order — then left after the next presidential election.
On Aug. 13, the Historic Districts Landmark Commission (HDLC) and the Human Relations Commission agreed that the monument — as well as monuments to P.G.T. Beauregard outside City Park, Robert E. Lee at Lee Circle and Jefferson Davis on Jefferson Davis Parkway — "may be removed" under the nuisance ordinance. The VCC concurred.
Pierre McGraw, a member of the Monumental Task Committee, a citizen group opposing the city's attempts to remove the statues, said that removing the Liberty Monument would come at a large cost to taxpayers and suggested adding interpretive plaques or more statues "to forgotten heroes or new heroes." Other opponents said removal of the Liberty Place monument would be Orwellian, comparable to the destruction of arts and architecture by the terror group ISIS. As it stands, McGraw said, the statue's context is "benign."
After the monument's erection in 1891, the city added new inscriptions — the first in 1932 — that added, "United States troops took over the state government and reinstated the usurpers but the national election of November 1876 recognized white supremacy in the South and gave us our state." In 1974, the city added a marker noting that, despite the importance of the monument in the city's history, "the sentiments in favor of white supremacy expressed thereon are contrary to the philosophy and beliefs of present-day New Orleans" ...
http://www.bestofneworleans.com/gambit/confederate-monumentandnbspupdate/Content?oid=2756084