Amid death threats, New Orleans officials removed the first of four Confederate monuments Monday morning in a move to distance the city from symbols many view as representative of racism and white supremacy, NBC News reports.
Removal of The Liberty Monument, an 1891 obelisk honoring the Crescent City White League, began around 1:25 a.m. in an attempt to quell backlash from protestors who want the monuments to stay. Police patrolled atop the parking garage of a nearby hotel as workers, clad in flak jackets and helmets, began the process of taking it down. Proponents of the monument, which celebrates whites who attempted to overthrow a biracial post-Civil War government, held a vigil at the statue of Jefferson Davis, who was president of the Confederacy during the Civil War.
In a Sunday interview with the Associated Press, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu called the Liberty Monument “the most offensive of the four,” noting it was specifically erected to “revere white supremacy.”
“If there was ever a statue that needed to be taken down, it’s that one,”Landrieu said.
Read the full NBC News report here.
—RealClearLife
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