Jeff Davis statue comes down as judge rejects effort to save Beauregard monument
15th May 2017 · 0 Comments
After weeks of skirmishes, spirited debates and angry exchanges between protesters and Mid-City residents, patrons and motorists, the Jefferson Davis monument on Jefferson Davis Parkway was taken down overnight on Thursday.
As word of the impending removal of the monument began to spread, about 40 protesters from each side of the argument gathered near the monument to witness the removal of the statue of the Confederate president who died in New Orleans.
Those tasked with taking down the Davis monument and hauling it away were again masked and wore dark clothing to conceal their identities after a series of death threats were received by city officials.
The monument, erected in 1911, was one of four Confederate-era monuments the New Orleans City Council in Dec. 2015 voted to remove from public spaces. The Battle of Liberty Place monument was taken down on April 24 and the city plans to also take down the Gen. Beauregard Equestrian Statue and the Robert E. Lee monument at Lee Circle.
With a crowd of several hundred Take ‘Em Down Nola activists, residents and monument supporters gathered at the corner of Canal Street and Jefferson Davis Parkway to witness the process, the Davis monument was taken down just after 5 a.m. Thursday.
“This morning we continue our march to reconciliation by removing the Jefferson Davis Confederate statue from its pedestal of reverence,” New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said.
Although the two sides were separated by barricades, insults, racially offensive language and profanities were shouted back and forth by those gathered near the monument.
Members of the Monumental Task Committee accused Landrieu of trying to erase the city’s history.
“Another historic monument was removed under the cover of darkness using amateur, masked workers in armor, unmarked vehicles and equipment with a heavy police presence,” said Pierre McGraw, president of the Monumental Task Committee in a statement. “Landrieu cannot be inclusive, tolerant or diverse when he is erasing a very specific and undeniable part of New Orleans’ history.”
“Three weeks ago, we began a challenging but long overdue process of removing four statues that honor the ‘Lost Cause of the Confederacy.’ Today we continue the mission,” said Landrieu.
On Monday, a day after a massive standoff that pitted those seeking to remove Confederate-era monuments from public spaces and monument supporters against one another on the final day of the 2017 Jazz Fest, a New Orleans judge denied a request for a restraining order.
In an attempt to block the removal of the P.G.T. Beauregard monument from its current site at the entrance to City Park, the Monumental Task Committee argued in a brief to Civil Court Judge Kern Reese that the City of New Orleans doesn’t have the authority to take down the monument because it doesn’t own the land that it sits on.
Reese rejected that argument and refused to issue a temporary restraining order that would have immediately halted efforts by the Landrieu administration to take down the Beauregard monument.
A day before Reese’s ruling, Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser, who had previously asked President Donald Trump to block the removal of the Confederate-era monuments from their public spaces, penned a letter ti City Park’s board of commissioners “to request that you exercise your fiduciary responsibility to preserve assets belonging to” City Park.
In the letter, Nungesser, who oversees City Park as commissioner of Louisiana’s Dept. of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, reminded City Park Board of Commissioners President Steven Pettus of the commission’s 1997 application in which the president asserts that City Park is “the true and only legal owner of the General Beauregard Equestrian Statue located in the New Orleans City Park.”
Nungesser added that he is “troubled” that the park’s board of commissioners has not stepped up to assert its ownership of the statue, which he called “a historic work of art” that is “vital” to City Park.
City Park sits on 1,300 acres and was the former site of the Allard Plantation. The land, which hosts the world’s largest collection of live oak trees, became city property in 1850 through the will of slaveowner John McDonogh. Four years later the Fourth District Court pronounced the land a public park and in 1891 the City Park Improvement Association was founded and the land was officially established as “City Park.”
The Gen. Beauregard Equestrian Statue was erected at the entrance to City Park in 1915.
On Wednesday, Judge Reese denied a request for an injunction against the City of New Orleans to prevent the Landrieu administration from taking down the Beauregard statue.
WWL reported that Richard Marksbury of the Monumental Task Committee had filed suit Monday as a private citizen, contending that the City Park board and not the city of New Orleans owned the statue and the land upon which it sits.
“I’m disappointed and I’ll be talking to people about to decide whether or not to go to the Fourth Circuit, because the key here probably is to get to the Supreme Court,” said Marksbury after the hearing. He wants to question the papers that he says show that City Park and not the city of New Orleans, owns the Beauregard monument.
Mayor Mitch Landrieu reacted to the ruling by saying that it is time to move from the debate in the courtroom and to removing the monuments.
“The law is the law, so we’re going to move forward with taking the monuments down,” Landrieu said
The judge had denied an earlier temporary restraining order request, but did hold a hearing Wednesday, at which time the request for an injunction was denied.
Reading from an earlier ruling by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal involving a previous legal challenge filed by Monumental Task Committee president Pierre McGraw, Judge Reese said; “Although (Beauregard) was paid for by funds raised and donated by a private association, the monument was donated to the city in 1907 and publicly dedicated in 1915.” Reading from a separate legal document, the hedge added that the land for the Beauregard monument was given to the city “for use of the city of New Orleans as forever.”
“That’s about as clear as it gets,” Reese said. “The democratic process whether we like it or not, has gone on long enough.
“There is no basis to grant a preliminary injunction,” Reese continued. “The property involved is under the ownership of the City of New Orleans.”
WWL News reported Wednesday that a bill in the state legislature to prevent removal of the monuments is still awaiting a house debate.
On Sunday, May 7, about 500 protesters marched from Congo Square to Lee Circle demanding that the statues be taken down. Although the atmosphere was racially charged, it was also electric and festive with at least two New Orleans brass bands accompanying the diverse group of marchers.
A day before the march, police announced that the streetcar line would be shut down to accommodate the protesters and ensure the safety of everyone involved.
In addition to daily protests at the statues of Beauregard, Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee and a barrage of emails criticizing the Landrieu administration for trying to move the monuments from public spaces, the administration is now being hit with a growing number of signs attacking the mayor for his role in the monument battle, WWL News reported last week.
Despite being criticized by monument supporters, the mayor has been tight-lipped about when the Davis, Lee and Beauregard monuments would be taken down. After taking down the Battle of Liberty Place monument on April 24. he refused to answer questions about the identity of the people who financed the statue-removal project and would only say that the monuments would be taken down “sooner rather than later.”
When asked about the signs criticizing the Landrieu administration last week, Landrieu spokesman Tyronne Walker told WWL News, “Mayor Landrieu is tackling touch issues. Signs aren’t one of them.”
Political pollster Ron Faucheux said the monuments debate, although late in Landrieu’s second term as mayor, does complicate his political legacy.
“From the standpoint that he was elected on a wave of great popularity, promising to bring the city together,” Faucheux told WWL. “For this type of divisive activity to happen in the last year of his administration, changes that somewhat.”
Landrieu is term-limited and cannot run for a third consecutive term as mayor.
“Symbols honoring the leaders of the bloody campaign to defend slavery have served only to divide and demean our nation and our city for more than a century now,” the Urban League of Louisiana said in a statement Thursday. “Efforts to remove such symbols from public places of honor in New Orleans date at least as far back as the early 1980s when Mayor Dutch Morial sought to move the Liberty Monument honoring white supremacists who attacked Black police and militia members.
“Such objects of reverence do not honor the history of New Orleans, but are rather part of a revisionist history campaign known as the Lost Cause of the Confederacy.”
Monument supporters have accused the mayor of opening up a Pandora’s box that will embolden those seeking to take down the Confederate-era statues to target other historic monuments, but members of Take ‘Em Down Nola have said that from the very beginning their goal was to remove or do away with more than 100 monuments, street names and school names that celebrate white supremacy.
After the Council voted to take down the four monuments, the mayor said he would establish a panel to determine whether other monuments across the city need to be removed from public spaces.
After two of the monuments have been taken down and the furor over the monuments has reached a feverish pitch, the Landrieu administration appears to be changing its tune.
“From the beginning, I’ve only been talking about these four particular monuments,” Landrieu said Thursday, adding that the City of New Orleans has not made any plans to change street names.
