Politics and Government

Taking Down Confederate Statues Was The First Step

WAMU 88.5

Published March 20, 2018 at 10:06 AM CDT

A New Orleans city worker wearing body armor and a face covering as he measures the Jefferson Davis monument on May 4, 2017 in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Louisiana House committee on Municipal, Parochial and Cultural Affairs voted Wednesday to advance House Bill 71 that would forbid the removal of Confederate monuments in Louisiana as the City Council in New Orleans tries to move three statues of Confederate luminaries from public spaces and into museums. Protests that have at times turned violent have erupted at the site of the Jefferson Davis Monument after the Battle at Liberty Place monument was taken down in the middle of the night on April 24.

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu made national news last year when he delivered a speech about why the city took down four Confederate monuments.

The South lost the war. The war was about slavery. And Landrieu described how the statues were meant “to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city. “

Landrieu faced protests and the contractors removing the monuments faced death threats from “the Cult of the Lost Cause,” but the statues came down.

In his new book, Landrieu argues that it’s time for a better South. Is the South, and the nation, ready to reckon with its past?

GUESTS

Mitch Landrieu, Mayor of New Orleans; president, U.S. Conference of Mayors; author: “In The Shadow Of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History”; @MitchLandrieu

For more, visit https://the1a.org.