Tag Archives: Changing History

Kentucky town welcomes Confederate memorial moved from Louisville

Members from The Sons of Confederate Veterans stand before a dedication ceremony in Brandenburg, Kentucky, U.S. May 29, 2017 for a Civil War Confederate Soldier Memorial recently removed from the campus of the University of Louisville. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston

By Bryan Woolston

BRANDENBURG, Kentucky (Reuters) – A small Kentucky town gave a formal welcome on Monday to a monument to the Confederate soldiers of the American Civil War, rededicating the controversial structure after the University of Louisville removed it as an unwelcome symbol of slavery.

About 400 people, some dressed in grey replica uniforms and many holding small Confederate battle flags, gathered for the Memorial Day ceremony on a bluff above the Ohio River in Brandenburg, about 40 miles (64 km) southwest of Louisville.

The town embraced the tower at a time when Confederate symbols are being removed across the South as reminders of a legacy of slavery and the racism that underpinned it.

“The way I look at it, it’s part of our history,” Brandenburg Mayor Ronnie Joyner said at the dedication, which included the firing of a Civil War-era cannon. “We need to preserve our history.”

Brandenburg says the riverfront park where it holds a biennial Civil War reenactment was an appropriate setting for what some see as a respectful homage to Kentucky’s fallen.

The monument’s new home is near the spot where a Confederate general in 1863 launched a raid on neighboring Indiana, and Brandenburg hopes the addition will bring more tourists to the town.

“The Civil War is not a popular part of people’s past, but you can’t wipe it out,” said Charles Harper of Louisville, who came to the dedication dressed in Confederate uniform. “Just because you wiped out a reference to the Civil War doesn’t mean you’ve wiped out slavery, doesn’t mean you wipe out racism.”

The 70-foot-tall concrete plinth features an oversized statue of a rebel soldier at its crown, representing one of thousands of Kentuckians who fought with breakaway Southern states in the bloodiest conflict in U.S. history.

Monday’s ceremony, watched by a crowd that was almost exclusively white, marked the end to a year-long saga that began in April 2016 when the University of Louisville announced it would dismantle the monument, erected in 1895.

Students and faculty had long criticized the memorial as a tacit tribute to Confederate cause during the 1861-65 conflict, fought primarily over the issue of slavery.

Last May, a state judge ruled against some Louisville residents and descendants of Confederate soldiers who sued to keep the monument from being moved.

Kentucky was neutral during the Civil War and never joined the Confederacy. But slavery was legal in the commonwealth and many Kentuckians sympathized with the rebel cause and fought on its side.

The drive to remove Confederate statues in the South and elsewhere accelerated after the 2015 murder of nine African-Americans by an avowed white supremacist at an historic South Carolina church. The murders stirred national soul-searching about racism and its symbols.

Soon after the killings, the Confederate battle flag was removed from the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol.

Last week New Orleans dismantled the last of four Confederate statues that stood in the city for decades. The mayor of Baltimore said on Monday that her city was considering following the lead of New Orleans by removing its monuments.

(Additional reporting and writing by Frank McGurty; Editing by Andrew Hay)

New Orleans removing last of four statues linked to pro-slavery era

The Robert E. Lee Monument, located in Lee Circle in New Orleans. REUTERS/Ben Depp

By Jonathan Bachman

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – New Orleans will remove a statue on Friday of Confederate military leader Robert E. Lee, the last of four monuments the city is taking down because they have been deemed racially offensive, officials said.

Since May 11, crews have removed monuments to Jefferson Davis, president of the pro-slavery Confederacy and P.G.T. Beauregard, a Confederate general.

Last month, a monument was taken down that commemorated an 1874 attack on the racially integrated city police and state militia by a white supremacist group called the “Crescent City White League”.

Crews will remove the statue of Robert E. Lee, who was the top military leader in the Confederacy, on Friday sometime after 9 a.m., the city said in a statement.

Earlier this month, dozens of supporters of the monuments clashed with hundreds of demonstrators near the site of the Robert E. Lee statue.

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu is expected to give a speech marking the removal of the last of the four monuments on Friday afternoon.

The monuments that pay homage to the Confederacy, made up of states which attempted to preserve slavery in the South and secede from the United States in the Civil War of 1861 to 1865, have been denounced by critics as an affront to the ideals of multi-racial tolerance and diversity in the majority-black Louisiana city.

But doing away with them has met with staunch resistance from groups who argue the statues are nevertheless important symbols of the city’s Southern heritage.

Statues and flags honoring the Confederacy have been removed from public spaces across the United States since 2015, after a white supremacist murdered nine black parishioners at a South Carolina church.

In 2015, New Orleans decided to take down the four monuments, and a U.S. appeals court ruled in March that it had the right to proceed.

(Additional reporting by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Catherine Evans)

New Orleans crews begin removing statue of Confederate general

A construction crew works to remove a monument of Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard at the entrance to City Park in New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S. May 17, 2017. REUTERS/Cheryl Gerber

By Cheryl Gerber

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – New Orleans authorities began dismantling a statue honoring Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard on Tuesday night, marking the third of four historical monuments the city slated for removal because they were deemed racially offensive.

Crews laboring under the glare of floodlights began what appeared to be the work of sawing the bottom of the 14-foot-tall statue – a bronze likeness of Beauregard on horseback – from its pedestal while some 200 bystanders looked on near the entrance of City Park.

A crane that was expected to eventually lift the statue from its base was moved into position, along with other heavy equipment, after workers cleared the area around the monument.

The crowd of onlookers, about evenly divided between statue supporters and opponents, were mostly subdued, though a few individuals shouted at one another across the police barricade separating them. Some members of the pro-statue group waved Confederate flags.

The public memorials to Beauregard and other heroes of the U.S. Civil War’s pro-slavery Confederacy have been denounced by critics as an affront to the ideals of multi-racial tolerance and diversity in the majority-black Louisiana city.

But doing away with the monuments has met with staunch resistance from groups who argue that the statues are nevertheless important symbols of the city’s Southern heritage.

The City Council voted in 2015 to remove monuments honoring two of the Confederacy’s best-known generals – Beauregard and Robert E. Lee – as well as Confederate President Jefferson Davis and a 19th-century white supremacist militia.

The Crescent City White League monument was taken down on April 24 and the Davis statue on May 11. The Lee memorial is scheduled to go next, though officials have not publicized precise removal dates in advance.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu wrote an editorial published on Monday in The Washington Post defending his decision to support bringing down the statues, which he characterized as one of his proudest moments in public office.

“Removing New Orleans’s Confederate monuments from places of prominence is an acknowledgment that it is time to take stock of, and then move past, a painful part of our history,” Landrieu wrote.

The Louisiana House of Representatives passed a measure on Monday that would require local governments to hold referendums before removing any Confederate monuments.

But the bill would not keep New Orleans from proceeding with its plans, said Richard Marksbury, a Tulane University professor and member of the Monumental Task Committee that fought to keep the Confederate monuments in place.

(Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Michael Perry)