*The first of four prominent Confederate monuments were taken down in New Orleans Monday morning, marking the latest Southern city to sever itself from symbols widely viewed as a representation racism and white supremacy.
The Liberty Place monument, which commemorates whites who attempted to break up a biracial post-Civil War government in New Orleans, was carted away on a truck in pieces around 5:35 a.m., according to reports.
The removal was done intentionally at the crack-of-dawn in an attempt to avoid drama from pro-monument protesters, some of whom city officials said have made death threats.
Workers who took the monument down Monday could be seen wearing bulletproof vests, military-style helmets and scarves that obscured their faces. Police were also on hand, including officers who watched the area from atop the parking garage of a nearby hotel.
Three other statues to Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and P.G.T. Beauregard and Confederate States of America President Jefferson Davis will be removed in later days now that legal challenges have been overcome.
“There’s a better way to use the property these monuments are on and a way that better reflects who we are,” New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said in an interview Sunday with The Associated Press.
Nationally, the debate over Confederate symbols has become heated since nine parishioners were killed at a black church in South Carolina in June 2015. South Carolina removed the Confederate flag from its statehouse grounds in the weeks after, and several Southern cities have since considered removing monuments. The University of Mississippi took down its state flag because it includes the Confederate emblem.
New Orleans is a majority African-American city although the number of black residents has fallen since 2005’s Hurricane Katrina drove many people from the city.
The majority black City Council in 2015 voted 6-1 to approve plans to take the statues down, but legal battles over their fate have prevented the removal until now, said Landrieu, who proposed the monuments’ removal and rode to victory twice with overwhelming support from the city’s black residents.
Watch a report on the removal below:
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