Who tells the story of the Confederate monuments in New Orleans?
POSTED BY ALEX WOODWARD
WED, MAY 18, 2016 AT 6:40 PM
... McGraw said "Confederate" is a charged buzzword used in the media. "These monuments were put up by fellow New Orleanians," he said. He also said moving the monuments to a historical setting, like a museum, is "ridiculous," and that none of the monuments say anything about white supremacy (the Liberty Place monument, he said, commemorates a "heroic effort" — in which members of the paramilitary ex-Confederate-led Crescent City White League led an insurrection against the integrated Metropolitan Police).
The Robert E. Lee Monument was unveiled in 1884; the Jefferson Davis Monument was unveiled in 1911; and the General P.G.T. Beauregard Equestrian Statue was completed in 1915. The Liberty Place monument was completed in 1891 and went through a series of changes and relocations — adding plaques for context, moving from the foot of Canal Street to a warehouse to behind a parking garage. In the 1930s, an inscription 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 the '70s, another marker added, "the sentiments in favor of white supremacy expressed thereon are contrary to the philosophy and beliefs of present-day New Orleans." And in the '90s, a marker simply added, "In honor of those Americans on both sides who died in the Battle of Liberty Place, a conflict of the past that should teach us lessons for the future."
Roberts said the monuments' placement says something about how we remember them, serving as a reminder to people that "white supremacy is not a thing of the past." "What does it mean when a culture has decided to put certain heroes on display?" he said ...
http://www.bestofneworleans.com/blogofneworleans/archives/2016/05/18/who-tells-the-story-of-the-confederate-monuments-in-new-orleans
