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NOLA’s New Mayor Might Keep Confederate Statues Predecessor Tore Down

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Rob Shimshock Education Reporter
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A committee appointed by New Orleans’ new mayor, Democrat LaToya Cantrell, suggested keeping two out of three Confederate statues the mayor’s predecessor, Mitch Landrieu, tore down in 2017.

The seven-member committee consisted of individuals who all opposed Landrieu’s decision to tear down the monuments of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Gens. Robert E. Lee and P.G.T. Beauregard, reported The Advocate.

“Placing Beauregard and Lee in Greenwood Cemetery will carry a new message to residents and visitors to the city of New Orleans,” the group said in its recommendation to Cantrell, with one member providing a $25,000 estimate for the transfer. “New Orleans will be viewed as a city that can deal with difficult social issues while finding suitable resolutions. New Orleans, and its leadership, will be viewed nationally as a place where art and history are valued.”

The group suggested moving the Davis statue to Beauvoir, the Confederate president’s Biloxi, Miss., estate-turned-museum. Cantrell has obtained and read the committee’s suggestion but has yet to make a decision, her spokeswoman LaTonya Norton told The Advocate. New Orleans’ Battle of Liberty Place statue, also torn down by Landrieu, went unaddressed by the committee at the mayor’s behest.

Landrieu tore the statues down and received the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation’s Profile in Courage Award for doing so. (RELATED: New Orleans Mayor Gets JFK Courage Award For Removing Confederate Statues)

Tulane University professor Rick Marksbury and Monumental Task Committee President Pierre McGraw, who both sit on the committee, previously sued New Orleans for removing the statues. Fellow group member and businessman Frank Stewart lambasted Landrieu for his decision in newspaper advertisements.

Take ‘Em Down NOLA leader Malcolm Suber called it “absurd” that the mayor would “have these meetings with these people who are proponents of keeping up white supremacist monuments.”

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